he ended his speech, he bowed his head, and vanished from their sight.

Jovinian returned to his throne, and for three years reigned with so much mercy and justice, that his subjects had no cause to regret the change of their emperor. And it came to pass, after the space of three years, the same angel appeared to him in a dream, and warned him of his death. So Jovinian dictated his troublous life to his secretaries, that it might remain as a warning unto all men against worldly pride, and an incitement to the performance of our religious duties. And when he had so done, he meekly resigned himself, and fell asleep in death.

"So much for the story, as a story; now for the moral, with all that eccentric spirit of refinement and abstraction with which the age was characterized,” said Herbert.

"The moral in this case is less eccentric than in many to which I hope we shall come before Christmas is over."

"Jovinian was but the picture of the proud, worldly-minded man, entirely given up to vanity and folly. The first knight whose castle he visited was True Wisdom, ever disdainful of the pomps and vanities of the world. The next knight was Conscience. The dog that turned against his old master, was the lusts of the flesh, our own evil desires, which will ever in the end turn against those who have pampered them. The falcon is God's grace; the Empress, Man's soul; and the clothes in which the good priest clothed the halffrozen emperor, are those kingly virtues which he had thrown off, when he gave loose to the vanities of the world."

"It must be admitted," remarked Herbert, "that from very early times a secondary meaning was commonly attached to every important work; it progressed from the sacred writings through the poetic fictions of the classics, to compositions professedly allegorical. The want of discrimination, which in our eyes assumes much of the appearance of profane levity, with which the fictions of the classics were interpreted to signify the great truths and mysteries of religion, was, perhaps, hardly reprehensible in the simple state of knowledge which prevailed at the time when these attempts at secondary interpretation were made."

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And hence it was," said Lathom, "that in the early ages it might seem to partake of little levity to prefigure our Saviour's birth in that of Bacchus ; his sufferings and death in that of Acteon, or his resurrection in the legend of Hercules, as related by Lycophron; as late as the thirteenth century the Franciscan Walleys wrote a moral and theological exposition of the Metamorphoses of Ovid."

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"But surely the writers of that age did not stop there," said Thompson; was it not the case, that to these expositions succeeded compositions professedly

allegorical, and which the spirit of refinement of that age resolved into further allegories, for which they were never intended?"

Undoubtedly so!" replied Lathom; "it was not enough that the writer of the Romaunt of the Rose' had allegorized the difficulties of an ardent lover in the accomplishment of his object, under the mystery of the rose which was to be gathered in a fair but almost inaccessible garden. Every profession saw in this allegory the great mystery of their craft. To the theologian it was the rose of Jericho, the New Jerusalem, the Blessed Virgin, or any other mystery to which obstinate heretics were unable to attain; to the chemist it was the philosopher's stone; to the lawyer it was the most consummate point of equity; to the physician the infallible panacea, the water of life; and does not this spirit of allegory extend to the present day, only in a somewhat different form?"

"Not unlike the present system of commentating," remarked Henry Herbert. "As soon as a poet has attained to any great reputation, and death has sealed up his writings, then comes the host of annotators and critics, each one more intent than his predecessor to develop the mind of the writer, to discover with what hidden intentions, with what feelings, this or that passage was written, and to build on some stray expression a mighty theory, for some more clever writer to overthrow, and raise a new fabric on its ruins. And in these attempts it is not the old author whose glory is sought to be heightened, but the new man who would ascend the ladder of reputation on the labours of the 'man of old.'"

"Far different," rejoined Lathom, "was the spirit which prompted the fashion of resolving every thing into allegories in the middle ages; nor, indeed, is it to be solely charged to an unmeaning and wanton spirit of refinement. The same apology,' says Wharton,' may be offered for cabalistic interpreters, both of the classics and of the old romances. The former, not willing that those books should be quite exploded which contained the ancient mythology, laboured to reconcile the apparent absurdities of the pagan system with the Christian mysteries, by demonstrating a figurative resemblance. The latter, as true learning began to dawn, with a view of supporting for a time the expiring credit of giants and magicians, were compelled to palliate those monstrous incredibilities, by a bold attempt to unravel the mystic web which had been wove by fairy hands, and by showing that truth was hid under the gorgeous veil of gothic invention.' And now, Thompson, we must adjourn, you to your real Greeks and Romans, Herbert and I to Aristotle's Summum Bonum."

CHAPTER II.

Discussion on the Source of Fiction Renewed-THE KING AND THE GLUTTON-GUIDO, THE PERFECT SERVANT-The Middle-age Allegories--Pliny and Mandeville's Wonders Allegorized.

"SURELY," said Henry Herbert, when the friends were again assembled, "surely the poems of the northern Scalds, the legends of the Arabians of Spain, the songs of the Armoricans, and the classics of the ancient world, have been the sources of the most prevalent fictions."

"The sources from which the monks themselves compiled these stories, but by no means the original sources," replied Lathom. "The immediate source must be sought in even earlier times and more eastern climes. In some instances perverted notions of Scripture characters furnished the supernatual agency of the legend; in the majority the machinery came direct from the east, already dilated and improved. In many parts of the old Scriptures we learn how familiar the nations of the east were with spells; and the elevation of Solomon Daoud to the throne of the Genii, and to the lordship of the Talisman, proves the traditional intercourse between God's own people and the nations of the far east."

"The theory is probable," said Thompson. "We can easily conceive how the contest of David and Goliath may have formed the foundation of many a fierce encounter between knight and giant, and the feats of Samson been dilated into the miracles of the heroes of chivalry."

"There is one very pertinent instance of such a conversion in this very book. In the book of Tobit, which is indeed referred to in the application of the tale of The Emperor Vespasian and the Two Rings,' we find an angel in the place of a saint, enchantments, antidotes, distressed damsels, demons, and nearly all the recognized machinery of fiction. The vagaries of the Talmud, clearly derived from eastern sources, were no small treasure on which to draw for wonders and miracles. And when we find all the machinery of the east in the poems of the Scalds, we cannot but perceive how much more reasonable it is to suppose the cold conceptions of the northern bards to have been fed from the east, than the warm imaginations of the east to have drawn their inspiration from the north."

"Very plausible, Lathom,” replied Herbert; “but still this objection must not be neglected the ignorance and misrepresentation of the religions of the east, shown through every page of the popular legends of the chivalric age."

"An objection of apparent weight, I will admit; and yet may it not have been the aim of the Christian writers to represent the infidels in the worst possible light, to pervert their creed, to exaggerate their vices? The charge of

idolatry, and the adoration of the golden image of Mahomet, may have been mere pious frauds."

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Admitting even this apology," rejoined Herbert," the difference of religion in the east and north seems another objection. The Romans adopted the legends of Greece, and naturalized them. With the mythology came the religious rites appendant to it. How did it happen that the Scalds adopted the one without falling into the other error?”

"Are the cases similar?" replied Lathom; "were the nations alike? Was there no difference of predisposition in the Romans and the Scalds as to the adoption of the mythologies of the East and Greece? Had not long intercourse in the one case prepared the Romans to receive? did it not agree with their preconceived notions? Such was not the case with the northern nations. Children, and rude children of nature, they were in no way prepared for a similar effect; but, seizing on the prominent features of the legends presented to them, they engrafted them on their own wild and terrible stories, adding to the original matter in some cases, and rejecting portions of it in others."

"Well, I will not carry this discussion further," said Herbert, "for fear of losing a story to-night; but I by no means give up my sources of didactic fictions."

"Well, then, a truce for this evening. I will read the tale of the King and the Glutton, by which the old monk wished to illustrate the moral, that men are blinded by their own avarice."

THE KING AND THE GLUTTON.

THERE once lived a king of Rome, who, out of charity to the blind, decreed that every subject of his that was so afflicted, should be entitled to receive a hundred shillings from the royal treasury. Now there was in Rome a club of men who lived for the world alone, and spent all they had in rioting and eating. Seven days had they continued revelling at one tavern, when the host demanded to be paid his bill. Every one searched his pockets, but still there was not enough to pay the reckoning.

"There still wants one hundred shillings," said the innkeeper; "and until that is paid, ye go not hence."

These young men knew not what to do, as they were penniless. "What shall we do?" said they one to another. "How can we pay so large a sum?" At length one bethought him of the king's edict.

"Listen," said he, "listen to me; does not the king give one hundred shillings to every blind man that applies for it?"

"Even so," said the rest; "but what then? we are not blind."

"Come, let us cast

"What then?" rejoined the young man. lots who shall be made blind, that when he is deprived of sight we may take him to the king's palace, and obtain the hundred shillings."

So the young men cast lots, and the lot fell upon the man who had proposed this plan. And the rest took him, and putting out his eyes, led him to the king's palace. When they knocked at the gate, the porter opened the wicket, and demanded their busi

ness.

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"Business," said they; see ye not our companion is blind? he seeks to receive the king's benevolent gift.”

"The blindness is rather sudden," muttered the porter, who knew the young man by sight. "Well, well, I will fetch the

almoner."

So the almoner, who distributed the king's charity, came to the gate, and looking on the young man, asked him what he wanted.

"A hundred shillings, which my lord the king gives to those that are blind," replied the youth.

"Thy blindness is very sudden," rejoined the almoner; "when did it happen, and where? for I saw thee yesterday with both eyes perfect in the tavern by the city wall."

"Last night, noble sir," replied the blind man, "last night, at that tavern I became blind."

"Go fetch the host," said the almoner sternly, "we will look into this matter more fully."

So when the innkeeper came, he inquired of him how the matter was; and when he had heard all their deeds, he turned to the young man, and said—

"Of a surety thou knowest but half the law, and dost interpret it wrong; to such as are blind by God's act, does our gracious king give his charity; such the law protects and relieves. But thou-why art thou blind? Thinkest thou that thou dost deserve to be rewarded for voluntarily surrendering thine eyes, in order to discharge the debt thou and thy companions had contracted by gluttony and rioting? Begone, foolish man thy avarice hath made thee blind."

So they drove away the young men from the king's gate, lamenting their folly and wickedness.