renovated grace and beauty; or, as it is prettily expressed in the metrical romance of Lambert li Cors,

Quant l' esté revient, et le beau temps s' espure,
En guise de fleur blanche reviennent a nature.

Finally, having reached the extremity of the world, having received homage from all nations who inhabit its surface, and being assured that there remained nothing more to conquer, Alexander formed the inconsiderate project of becoming sovereign of the air and deep. By the conjurations of the eastern professors of magic, whom he consulted, he was furnished with a glass cage of enormous dimensions, yoked with eight griffins well matched. Having seated himself in this conveyance, he posted through the empire of the air, accompanied by magicians, who understood the language of birds, and asked at the most intelligent natives the proper questions concerning their laws, manners, and customs, while Alexander received their voluntary submissions. This aërial journey, like most of the fictions concerning Alexander, is of eastern origin. An old Arabian writer, in a book called Malem, informs us that Nimrod being frustrated in his attempt to build the tower of Babel,

insisted on being carried through the air in a cage borne by four monstrous birds (D'Herbelot, Bib. Orient. Nimrod). The notion of comprehending the language of birds is also oriental. This faculty was attributed by the eastern nations to Solomon, who, when he travelled on his magic carpet, with his soldiers on his right hand, and on the left the genii, was always attended by flights of birds, which sheltered his army from the sun (Sale's Koran). The idea, however, seems to have passed at an early period into Europe; Gerbert, or Sylvester II., is said to have acquired it while at Seville, from the Moors, and in an old Scandinavian romance, Sigurd attains this accomplishment by supping broth made of the flesh of dragons.

It is impossible to conjecture how high Alexander might have mounted, or what important information he might have derived from the birds, had he not been compelled to descend from the clouds by the intolerable heat of these upper regions. On his return from this aërial excursion, he resolved to cool himself, and to ascertain how the great fish behaved to the little ones, by descending to the bottom of the deep in a species of diving-bell. The fish, as he expected, crowded round the machine, and paid him their humblest

homage. It is remarkable that a similar story is mentioned by one of the old Welsh bards, (Davies' Celtic Researches, p. 196,) and Mr Southey, in his notes to Madoc, says, that it was pointed out to him by Mr Coleridge, in one of the most ancient German poems.

When Alexander had received the obeisance of the fish, he returned to Babylon, where he was crowned with due pomp, and mass was performed with proper solemnity. Soon after his coronation he was treacherously poisoned, an event which had been presaged by the salamanders, of which he had found a large supply in the menagerie of the kings of Persia, and had always kept good fires for their subsistence and entertainment. As an acknowledgment for this hospitality they foretold his death, but their prediction did not meet from him the attention which it merited.

The Cyclus of romances relating to classical heroes, of which I have now enumerated the most important, are perhaps chiefly interesting, as having supplied copious materials to our English poets of the earliest school. Adam Davies' Lyfe of Alexander is derived from the metrical romances on that prince's exploits : Lydgate's Troy Book is almost a paraphrase of the chronicle of

Colonna, and many of the stories introduced by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, may be traced to the same origin. Such spurious chronicles, and the romances founded on them, were the primary source of all those metrical compositions enumerated in the Cursor Mundi :

Of Julius Caesar the emperour,

Of Alexauder the conquerour,
Of Greece and Troy, the strong stryf
Where many a man lost his lyf.

It was to be expected that the age which exhibited the heroes of Greece as knights errant, should represent the poets and sages of antiquity as necromancers and wizards. Of all distinguished characters, Virgil seems to have fallen most strongly under this suspicion, and the story of his amours and incantations has formed the subject of a very curious romance of chivalry and magic. It has been doubted whether the sorcerer Vergilius was the same with the Roman poet; but it appears from the authors of the 14th and 15th centuries, that such at least was the prevailing opinion in the dark ages. This receives confirmation from the necromancer's connection with Naples, and the castle which he is said to have

possessed in the suburbs of Rome. In the commencement, too, of the romance, Vergilius is unjustly deprived of his inheritance, wherein he is afterwards reinstated by favour of the emperor, which seems to identify him with that poet, who, under the character of Tityrus, has acknowledged his restoration by Augustus to the lands from which he had been driven, in such pathetic bursts of gratitude.

How Virgil acquired the character of an adept in magic, forms a curious subject of inquiry. Naudaeus, in his Apology for great men suspected of practising that art, conceives that the absurd opinions entertained concerning Virgil, originated in the Pharmaceutria of his eighth eclogue, where he hath so learnedly discussed whatever relates to magic-the Vittas molles-verbenas pingues-thura mascula, and

Carmina quae coelo possunt deducere Lunam.

This belief in the magical powers of Virgil may have received confirmation from the sixth book of the Æneid, in which the secrets of the world unknown are so mysteriously revealed :