Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/536

362 year 1516. Davenant has also a tragedy on the same subject, called, king of the Lombards, his Tragedy.

"A most sanguinary scene in Shakspeare's, an incident in Dryden's or Boccace's and , and the catastrophe of the beautiful metrical romance of the , are founded on the same horrid ideas of inhuman retaliation and savage revenge; but in the last two pieces, the circumstances are so ingeniously imagined, as to lose a considerable degree of their atrocity, and to be productive of the most pathetic and interesting situations."—.

The Latin original says, Magistrum Virgilium, Master Virgil, signifying one skilful in the occult sciences.

"This story is in the old black-lettered history of the Necromancer Virgil, in Mr. Garrick's collection.

"Vincent of Beauvais relates many wonderful things, mirabiliter actitata, done by the poet Virgil, whom he represents as a magician. Among others, he says, that Virgil fabricated those brazen statues,