Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/76

l the most preposterous misrepresentations of their history. To cover this deviation from the promised plan, which, by introducing a more ample variety of matter, has contributed to increase the reader's entertainment, our collector has taken care to preface almost every story with the name or reign of a Roman emperor; who, at the same time, is often a monarch that never existed, and who seldom, whether real or supposititious, has any concern with the circumstances of the narrative ."

The influence which this work has had on English poetry, is not the least surprizing fact connected with it. Not only the earlier writers of our country—Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate, Occleve, &c. have been indebted to it, but also, as the reader will perceive in the notes, the poets of modern times. Its