Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/73

Rh obtuse by the rude nature of their customary occupations; while, on the other hand, an apposite story, would arouse attention, and stimulate the blind and unenquiring devotion, which is so remarkably characteristic of the middle ages.

The work under consideration is compiled from old Latin chronicles of Roman, or rather, as Mr. Warton and Mr. Douce think, of invention. But this idea, with all submission, derives little corroborative evidence from fact. There is one story, and I believe, but one, which gives any countenance to it. That a few are extracted from German authors, (who may not, after all, be the inventors) is no more proof that the compiler was a German, than that, because some stories are found in the Roman annals, the whole book was the production of a Latin writer.