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don of his error, but the highest recompence promised to a virtuous life.

This tale forms the eightieth chapter of the Gesta Romanorum, but there the conflagration of the monastery is omitted, and the strangulation of the infant in the cradle substituted in its place, while a new victim is conjured up for the submersion. Similar incidents are related in the Ser mones de Tempore of a German monk of the 15th century. The story also occurs, with some additions and variations, in Howell's Letters, which were first published in 1650, but is professed to be transcribed from Sir Philip Herbert's Conceptions. There, on first setting out on the journey, the angel tumbles a man into the river because he meant that night to rob his master: he next strangles a child: after which follows the apparently whimsical transference of the goblets. Last of all, the travellers meet with a merchant, who asks his way to the next town, but the angel, by misguiding him, preserves him from being robbed. This deviation, I think, occurs in none of the other imitations, and it by no means forms a happy cli

max.

The story has again been copied in the

'Howell's Letters, b. 4. let. 4.

Dialogues of the Platonic theologist Dr Henry More. It has been inserted, as is well known, in the chapter of Voltaire's Zadig, De l' Hermite qu' un Ange conduisit dans le siecle, and it also forms the subject of the Hermit of Parnel. That poem bears a closer resemblance to the tale, as related in the Gesta Romanorum, than to any of the other versions. Its author, however, has improved the subject by a more ample developement of the moral lesson, by a happier arrangement of the providential dispensations, and by reserving the discovery of the angel till the conclusion of the whole. But, on the other hand, the purloining the goblet in the Conte Devot might have been rationally expected to cure the hermit of his strange habit of scouring it in time of prayer, and the conflagration of the monastery might effectually have corrected the luxury and abuses that had crept into it; but Parnel's transference of the cup must have been altogether inadequate either for the reformation of the vain man, from whom it was taken away, or of the miser, on whom it was bestowed.

The first germ of this popular and widely diffused story may be found, though in a very rude and imperfect shape, in the eighteenth chapter of the Koran, entitled the Cave. Moses, while lead

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ing the children of Israel through the wilderness, found, at the meeting of two seas, the prophet Al Khedr, whom he accosted, " and begged to be instructed by him; and he answered, Verily thou canst not bear with me: for how canst thou patiently suffer those things, the knowledge whereof thou dost not comprehend? Moses replied, Thou shalt find me patient, if God please; neither will I be disobedient unto thee in any thing. He said, If thou follow me, therefore, ask me not concerning any thing, until I shall declare the meaning thereof unto thee. So they both went on by the sea-shore, until they went up into a ship: and he made a hole therein. And Moses said unto him, Hast thou made a hole therein, that thou mightest drown those who are on board? Now hast thou done a strange thing. He answered, Did I not tell thee that thou couldest not bear with me? Moses said, Rebuke me not, because I did forget; and impose not on me a difficulty in what I am commanded. Wherefore they left the ship, and proceeded, until they met with a youth; and he slew him. Moses said, Hast thou slain an innocent person, without his having killed another? Now hast thou committed an unjust action. He answered, Did I not tell thee that thou couldest not bear with me? Moses said, If I ask thee concern

ing any thing hereafter, suffer me not to accompany thee: now hast thou received an excuse from me. They went forward, therefore, until they came to the inhabitants of a certain city, and they asked food of the inhabitants thereof; but they refused to receive them. And they found therein a wall, which was ready to fall down; and he set it upright. Whereupon Moses said unto him, If thou wouldest, thou mightest doubtless have received a reward for it. He answered, This shall be a separation between me and thee: but I will first declare unto thee the signification of that which thou couldest not bear with patience. The vessel belonged to certain poor men, who laboured in the sea: and I was minded to render it unserviceable, because there was a king behind them, who took every sound ship by force. As to the youth, his parents were true believers; and we feared lest he, being an unbeliever, should oblige them to suffer his perverseness and ingratitude: wherefore we desired that the Lord might give them a more righteous child in exchange for him, and one more affectionate towards them. And the wall belonged to two orphan youths of the city, and under it was a treasure hidden which belonged to them; and

their father was a righteous man: and thy Lord was pleased that they should attain their full age, and take forth their treasure, through the mercy of thy Lord. And I did not what thou hast seen of mine own will, but by God's direction. This is the interpretation of that which thou couldest not bear with patience." (Sale's Koran, c. 18.)

Several other Contes Devots, like the story of the hermit, are of good moral tendency. The great proportion of them, however, are totally the reverse, as they tend to inculcate the doctrine that persons of the most profligate lives may be saved by the repetition of numerous Aves. In almost all, the perfection of morals and Christianity is represented as consisting in the recital of mass, in fasting, and corporeal mortification: sometimes, though rarely, there is added the distribution of alms. A few of the tales, as La cour de Paradis, one would think had been written for the purpose of turning every thing sacred into ridicule. Those relating to the sexual temptations, to which monks were subjected, as Du Prevot d'Aquilée and D'un Hermite et du duc Malaquin, are extremely licentious; and it is worthy of remark, that the lives of the nuns and monks are represented as much more profligate in the Contes Devots than in the lighter compositions of the Trouveurs.

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