CHAPTER VI.
Curiosities of the Gesta—The Wicked Priest—The Qualities of the Dog—The Emperor’s Daughter—Curious Application—The Emperor Leo and the Three Images—An Enigma.
“The use Shakespeare has made of your monks’ tales would seem to augur a certain popularity of the work in the days in which he wrote,” said Herbert, when the friends met on their sixth evening.
“A greater popularity than will now be credited: in the reign of Elizabeth and her successor, the Gesta Romanorum seems to have been sufficiently well known to admit of a frequent reference to it on the stage,” replied Lathom.
“Allusions to the work, not incidents from it?” asked Herbert.
“Yes, in the anonymous comedy of Sir Giles’ Goose Cap, published early in James’ reign, one of the characters speaks of the ‘quips and quick jests of his lordship as so good that Gesta Romanorum were nothing to them’; whilst Chapman in his ‘May-Day,’ which dates in 1611, says, ‘one that has read Marcus Aurelius, Gesta Romanorum, and the Mirror of Magistrates, to be led by the nose like a blind bear that has read nothing!’”
“The slightest knowledge of the accomplishments of the Tudor and early Stuart times compels us to admitthe extensive acquaintance with Latin writers possessed by classes to whom now they seem so little fitted,” remarked Herbert.
“An acquaintance arising in all probability from the absence of a native literature, as well as from the position held by the Latin language in that age; the French of the present generation,” rejoined Thompson.
“Whose conversions have we to-night?” asked Herbert.
“Not any: not that my catalogue is run out, but partly because I have not been able to keep up with the speed of our reading; and partly because I wished to illustrate the moralizations attached to the tales, which we have lately rather lost sight of.”
“What peculiar doctrine are you intending to illustrate?” asked Herbert.
“The 26th article of our Church, that the effect of the ordinance is not taken away, nor the grace of God’s gifts diminished by the ministration of evil men; it is the story of