contributions on the eighty novels of Hieronymo Morlini, a work written in Latin, and printed at Naples in 1520, 4to, but now almost utterly unknown, as there was but one edition, and even of this impression most of the copies were committed to the flames soon after the publication. Many of the tales of Straparola are closely imitated, and the last thirteen are literally translated from the Latin of Morlini. One of these is the common story of a physician, who said that the whole practice of physic consisted in three rules, to keep the feet warm, the head cool, and to live like the beasts, that is, according to nature.

But although Straparola has copied largely from others, no one has suggested more to his successors. His work seems to have been a perfect storehouse to future Italian novelists. In the nights of Straparola, too, as shall be afterwards more particularly shown, the French authors of the fairy and oriental tales have been supplied with numerous incidents. Thus in the first of eleventh, the cat of Constantine procures for his master a fine palace, and the heiress of a king, which must have suggested the Chat Botté of Perrault. In the third of the third, a princess is betrothed to the king of Naples, but is shut up by a jealous stepmother in a tower, while her own daughter, through the

friendship of a fairy, receives, during the visit of the king, the appearance of the persecuted princess. This is the story of Blanche belle in the Illustres Feés. The fourth of the third is the Fortunio of the same collection, and the first of the second, the Prince Marcassin of Mad. d'Aulnoy, &c. The first of the eighth is the often-repeated story of Get up and bar the Door. In this tale of Straparola, there is a dispute between a husband and his wife who should close the door, and it is agreed that it should be done by the person who speaks first. A stranger comes in and uses unsuitable familiarities with the wife, who reproaches her husband with his patience, and is in consequence obliged to shut the door, according to the agreement. The second of the eighth is the Ecole des Maris of Moliere. In that comedy, two guardians, who are brothers, bring up their wards on different systems of education, and the girl who had been brought up with the greatest strictness runs off with a gallant. Perhaps, however, the story of Straparola may have been suggested by the Adelphi of Terence, where one brother brings up a son on lax, and the other on rigid, principles; and he who had received the strictest discipline becomes the most dissipated of the two.

Few of the stories of Straparola deserve to be

analyzed on account of their intrinsic merit. The second of the seventh night, however, is a roman. tic story, and places in a striking light the violent, amorous, and revengeful passions of the Italians. Between the main-land of Ragusa and an island at some distance, there was a rock entirely surrounded by the sea. On this barren cliff there was no building, save a church, and a small cottage inhabited by a young hermit, who came to seek alms sometimes at Ragusa, but more frequently at the island. There he is seen and admired by a young woman, confessedly the most beautiful of the inhabitants. As she is neither dilatory nor ceremonious in communicating her sentiments, and as the hermit had received from her beauty corresponding impressions, nothing but a favourable opportunity is wanting to consummate their happiness. With consistent frankness of conduct, she requests her lover to place a lamp in the window of his cottage at a certain hour of the night, and promises that, if thus guided, she will swim to the hermitage. Soon as she spied the signal, she departed on this marine excursion, and arrived at the love-lighted mansion of the recluse. From his cell, to which she was conducted, she returned home, undiscovered, at the approach of dawn; and, emboldened by impunity, repeatedly availed

herself of the beacon. At length she was remarked by some boatmen, who had nearly fished her up, and who acquainted her brothers with her amphibious disposition, the spot to which she resorted, and their suspicion of the mode by which she was directed. Her kinsmen forthwith resolve on her death. The youngest of the brothers proceeds in the twilight to the rock, and, in order that the signal might not be displayed, implores for that night the hospitality of the hermit. On the same evening the elder brothers privately leave their house in a boat, with a concealed light and a pole. Having rowed to that part of the deep which washed the hermitage, they placed the light on the pole. Their sister, who appears to have been ever watchful, departed from the island. When the brothers heard her approach, they slipped away through the water, and as the pole was fastened to the boat, they drew the light along with them. The poor wretch, who in the dark saw no other object, followed the delusion to the main sea, in which it was at length extinguished. Three days after her body was washed on shore on the rock, where it was interred by her lover. Thus, adds the approving novelist, the reputations of the brothers and the sister were equally and at once preserved.

The first part of this tale was probably suggest

ed by the classical fable of Hero and Leander. It is the subject of a poem by Bernard le Gentil, entitled Euphrosìné et Melidor.

BANDELLO,

who, in this country at least, is the best known of all the Italian novelists next to Boccaccio, was born in the neighbourhood of Tortona. He resided for some time at Milan, where he composed a number of his novels, but, wearied with the tumults and revolutions of that state, he retired, in 1554, to a village in the vicinity of Agen in France. Here he revised and added to his novels, which some friend had recovered from the hands of the soldiers who burned his house at Milan. In 1541 he was raised by Francis I. to the bishopric of Agen, where he died in 1555. His tales were first published at Lucca, 1554, 4to. In the complete editions of Bandello the work is divided into four parts, the first, second, and third parts containing fiftynine stories, and the fourth twenty-eight. The whole are dedicated to Ippolita Sforza, though she died before their publication, because it was at her desire that the work was originally undertaken. Besides this general dedication, each no