he was dead. There is no occasion to mix up the two events. If Dante had really meant to connect Virgil with the story narrated by Lucan, he would not have failed to make clear so interesting an historical reference; or if, as we think is the case, he had no such intention, there is no difficulty in supposing that Erichtho outlived Virgil, and exercised her arts upon his spirit in the usual way.

The absence of any reference by Dante to the obvious discrepancy between the spiritual worlds of Virgil and of himself is mentioned by Signor Comparetti as if it were an instance of discreet silence upon an inconsistency which could not be satisfactorily got over. We think that the difficulty, if any, disappears when we remember that Virgil's previous theory as to a future life must be considered as having merged after death in the corrected views, implied by his function in Dante's poem. Nor is there anything inconsistent with this enlargement of vision in the fact that many of his dicta as to particular persons are implicitly received by Dante, such, for instance, as the position of Ripheus in Paradise, and of Cato as a venerated judge, instead of a punished suicide. Dante might be content to take Virgil's word as to ancient personages, about whom the latter had the best means of knowing, without accepting it as to matters on which only a Christian would be well informed. In accordance with this idea, the Christianity of Virgil is in the 'Divina Commedia much more developed than the common medieval belief, though it still came far short of that which is ascribed to Statius. The latter was believed to have owed his conversion to the fourth Eclogue, and is thus a sort of emanation' of Virgil; nevertheless, he takes his place on arriving at the entrance of Paradise. Granting the assumptions which must be made by any writer who uses a celebrated personage under conditions so singular as those which govern the employment of Virgil in the 'Divina Commedia,' there is nothing in the conception contradictory to what is known of him from his works, or from the scanty particulars of his life. The extent of knowledge attributed to him, though it is an idea doubtless derived from medieval sources, will scarcely be thought out of keeping by anyone who has been led to appreciate 'per il lungo studio e il grande amore' the stores of learning which are woven into the texture of the Æneid.' And the personal character of the poet is touched by Dante with a fineness of discrimination and a plenitude of shading which have charmed all readers, and form a striking contrast to the barrenness or perverseness of most of the attempts which have been made to bring real and important people upon a fictitious scene.

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Such

Such was the fortune of the Virgilian tradition when it fell into the hands of genius. How it fared when taken up by a man of mere literary talent may be judged from another work of the thirteenth century, in which we emerge from the scholastic and educational atmosphere into the regions of popular fiction. This is the poem, called 'Dolopathus,' written in Latin by John, a monk of the abbey of Attasilva or Hauteseille, in Lorraine, and afterwards turned into French verse by a certain Herbers, the latter being the only version now extant. The story is briefly as follows:

Dolopathos, King of Sicily in the time of Augustus, has a son, Lucinianus, whom he sends to Rome to be instructed by Virgil. The wife of Dolopathos dying, he marries again, and soon after recalls his son. Virgil, by astrology, discovers that the youth is menaced with a great misfortune, only to be averted by his keeping entire silence till his tutor tells him he may speak. On arriving in Sicily he seems incurably dumb, but the new queen is, at her own request, allowed to attempt a cure. She at once makes love to the youth, who behaves with the reserve to be expected from a pupil of Virgil; while the lady, fearing he may reveal her conduct, accuses him to the King of a similar offence. Lucinianus is on the point of being condemned to death, when a wise man appears, and by telling a story obtains a day's delay. Other sages follow, till, on the seventh day, Virgil arrives, tells a story in like manner, and then orders the prince to speak. He reveals all, and the queen is burnt alive.

In this story we recognise the framework of the tale of the Seven Wise Men, the relationships of which to Oriental as well as to other European stories form an interesting, though complicated, chapter in the history of fiction. They are traced in the works of Ellis and Dunlop, and more recently Signor Comparetti has devoted to them a monograph, 'Researches on the Book of Sindibad.' But the Dolopathos,' though manifestly derived from the same origin, is distinguished by the introduction of Virgil as the protagonist of the story, and this not in the light of a magician (which would have transferred it from the category of literary to that of popular tradition), but of a sage of profound though still human wisdom.

Jean de Hauteseille, far from being a mere retailer of popular legends, is acquainted with Virgil's works, and takes pains to place his narrative in an appropriate setting. The wife whom Augustus gives to Dolopathos is the daughter of Agrippa; Dolopathos himself is, like so many other distinguished people, 'of Trojan origin.' The author quotes St. Augustine, and winds up his story in a religious fashion. On the other hand, the geo

graphy

graphy and chronology of Jean are somewhat confused; while he talks of bishops, monks, and abbots, in pagan times, he makes Augustus Emperor of Romagna and King of Lombardy, and Dolopathos a feudal prince. Moreover, Virgil himself is of a romantic type, an exaggerated copy of the portrait with which we are already familiar. He is the most learned of all clerks,' and greatest of all men in poetry. Kings and emperors bow before him. He wears a sleeveless furred mantle, and a fur cap, and is seated on a chair, while his pupils, the children of many a high baron,' sit on the ground. These he instructs in the seven arts, which he has reduced into the compass of a little book, which may be held in the closed hand. The author, though he mentions astrological divination, believes in it only as a thing permitted by God, in accordance with which view the fourth Eclogue is used to convert Licinianus to Christianity after his father's death.

Before passing from the 'Dolopathos' to the purely popular legends about Virgil, we may mention some works or passages in medieval literature, which Signor Comparetti either omits or notices too briefly. To the latter category belongs the ' Æneid' of Heinrich Von Veldecke, written towards the end of the twelfth century, and adapted not directly from Virgil, but from Le Roman d'Énée,' a French poem existing in the Paris library, but as yet inedited. Its deviations from the original are considerable. In mentioning the siege of Troy, the death of Hector is scarcely noticed; the parting with Andromache is curtly told, but there is a long description of the furniture of Dido's chamber,

and the love-scenes generally take up far more space than they

do in Virgil. It was a celebrated poem in its day, but its publication was delayed to the Horatian limit in a manner quite unintended by its author, from whom, immediately on its completion, it was borrowed by the Count Von Schwartzburg, and only returned, after nine years, through the influence of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia.

The celebrity of the 'Æneid' is reflected in some of our old English ballads, notably the one In Praise of Inconstancy,' sung at a certain Feast of Brougham Castle;' to the composer of this the conduct of Æneas did not appear in the heinous light that it has done to modern critics :

'Dido wept, but what of this?

The gods would have itt soe;

Aeneas nothing did amisse
Ffor he was fforcte to go.'

But a less cynical view is expressed in the ballad of 'The Wan

derynge

derynge Prince of Troy,' which follows Virgil up to Dido's death, after which we hear of the faithless Trojan at 'an isle in Grecia,' where he receives a letter from her sister describing the tragic scene. Then comes Dido's ghost, pale and reproachful, to warn him of his approaching doom. He sues for mercy, but suffers the punishment provided for heroes who love and sail away:

6

We are tempted to quote a passage or two from the Epistola Obscurorum Virorum, to show the vestiges of the feeling against the classical authors as profane which continued to exist in the sixteenth century:

'Afterwards at Mantua we heard firing, because the army then lay before Brescia. And my fellow traveller said, "Virgil was born here." I answered, "What do I care for that heathen? We want to go to the Carmelites and see Baptista of Mantua who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard ten times from Ortwin, and have said to him, you have censured Donatus once for all when he says Virgil is the most learned of all poets, and you said, 'I wish Donatus was here, I should like to tell him to his face that he lies, for Baptista the Mantuan is above Virgil.'" And when we came to the Carmelite convent we were told that Baptista of Mantua was dead; then, said I, 'May he rest in peace.'

6

Ortwin, however, had himself lectured on Virgil, as we learn from the letter of Antoninus N., Licentiate in medicine;' with what intelligence, may be gathered from the fact that the pupil, to illustrate the words 'intentique ora tenebant,' and as he says 'to keep the peace,' had painted on the margin of his copy a man with a padlock on his mouth. That the study of Virgil. must at this time have declined may be gathered from other passages in the letters :—

'I understand,' writes Magister Unkenbunck to Ortwin, 'that you have few hearers, and that you complain that Buschius and Cæsarius (two professors of the reformed learning) draw away your scholars, though they do not know how to interpret the poets allegorically, as you do, and to adduce Holy Scripture. I believe the devil is in these poets (ie., the reforming professors), they are destroying the Universities Freshmen want now to hear Virgil and Pliny, Once it was an out of the way thing

and other new authors

*Percy Ballads,' vol. iii.

to

S

to study poetry. And when a student stated in confession that he had secretly been lectured on Virgil by a graduate, the priest imposed on him a great penance, to fast every sixth holiday, or say the seven penitential psalms daily.'

Though Signor Comparetti is technically right in placing 'Dolopathos' in the category of literature rather than of popular fiction, we at once feel that we have descended a long way below the level of Dante; nor do the extracts we have just given reveal a state of intellect to which even coarser food would be unpalatable. We are thus brought to the VIRGILIAN LEGENDS, which exhibit the poet in a light that will be new to many even of those who can read him in the original, unless they happen to be students of old romances. We have in the Dolopathos already travelled far from our usual ideas of the Augustan poet; how, then, are we to recognise him in an enchanter who creates talismans at pleasure, sails through the air in magic ships, whisks princesses from Rome to Babylon in a flash of lightning, sends a familiar spirit to rob an emperor of his supper? Horace describes to us his unaffected astonishment at the poet 'who, like a magician, can take him at will to Thebes or Athens,' but it would have surprised him to learn that his friend Virgil would one day be credited with such a power in literal truth. Nevertheless, there are one or two points in the real Virgil which, we have no doubt, had their influence in determining his subsequent legendary character. There was the Eclogue called the Pharmaceutria,' which, judging from Virgil's usual care in details, would naturally be believed to be written with as intimate a knowledge of the subject as is shown by Goethe in the passage on the technicalities of alchemy in Faust;' there was the prophetic Eclogue, on which enough has been said; and there was the dying wish of the poet that his books should be burnt, an injunction which those who know the habits of wizards are aware is a no uncommon incident in their last communications with the world. A posthumous reputation for magical powers is, of course, common enough in all countries and ages. Not to mention well-known instances such as that of Petrarch-Warton * tells us that Horace in the neighbourhood of Palestrina was in his time still regarded as a wizard. And the peasants near Cerbaldo still consider Boccaccio as a magician, and tell various stories about his spirit. There is, therefore, nothing to cause wonder if a yet more celebrated name should have gathered round it some such accretions. The tomb of Virgil long continued to be one of the mirabilia of Naples.

* Hist. Eng. Poetry,' vol. iii. p. 62, note. † Giusti, 'Proverbi Toscani,' p. 413. Statius