Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/417

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"In a more confined sense, the first part of this apologue may be separately interpreted to signify, that a king, when he enters on his important charge, ought not to suppose himself to succeed to the privilege of an exemption from care, and to be put into the immediate possession of the highest pleasures, conveniences, and felicities of life; but to be sensible, that from that moment, he begins to encounter the greatest dangers and difficulties."—.

"In Adam Davie's, or romance of , Nectabanus, a king and magician, discovers the machinations of his enemies by embattling them in figures of wax. This is the most extensive necromantic operation of the kind that I remember, and must have formed a puppet-show equal to the most splendid pantomime.

Barons were whilome wise and good, That this art well understood: