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ART. IV.-The Lives of the Roman Emperours, written by Sebastian Franck. MS. pp. 298. 4to.*

The author, we should rather say, the compiler, of the chronicle which we are about to make known to our readers, has given, in the form of annals, a brief and imperfect narrative of events upon the Continent, from Julius Cæsar to " Carolus V. the 121 Roman Emperour." The latest date is Anno 1535, after which is an abrupt conclusion.

We are not able to furnish any account of the writer. He appears, from many passages, to have been a steady opponent of the abuses which had grown up in the Papal power; and is equally marked in his reprobation of the extravagance of certain of the separatists. Of his general merits as a historian, our extracts shall enable the reader to form his own judgment.

Pages 40 to 45 treat "Of the conversion, and fained donation of Constantine vnto Pope Sylvester and his successors ;” which we are not disposed to enter upon here.

At page 63 is the following notice of the famed leader of British chivalry, whose good sword Excalibor and fabled residence in the Isle of Avalon are not forgotten:

"Artus, or Arturus, king of the Brittans, received his kingdom about this tyme,† he was a renowned warrior, and a strong man, who subdued the Barbarians, and brought peace vnto the church, a promotor of the Christian faith, a victorious conqueror in many battels and great actions; he had a sword wherewith he killed four hundred and sixty men in one battle, with his own hand; they carried a shield before him, wherein was painted the figure of Mary, the mother of Christ, whom he honoured as an advocatesse.

"He added vnto his kingdome, in a short tyme, thirty other kingdomes; he was, in his tyme, the richest and most renowned of all kings, and yet, after many noble and courageous actions, he was lost in a feight, being wounded, and also sent into an island, also that the Brittains expected his return many yeeres, and some expect his return vnto this day."

At page 75, the composition of the Koran is thus described:

66 THE TURKS' ALCORAN OR LAW BOOK.

"The Alcoran of the Turks is like vnto the Thalmut of the Jews, or the decree of the Papists; in which is comprehended, by Mahomet,

* We have reason to think that this volume will have its final resting place in the noble library of that illustrious foundation to which our title-page declares our attachment. The writing_appears to be of the latter half of the XVIth or beginning of the XVIIth century.

+ The reign of Clodoveus, the first Christian. King of France, which began anno 479.

the ordre of their religion, being assisted by John Antiochinus, and Sergius, a Jew, in which is proved that Christ ascended into heaven, but that he did not suffer, but Judas the traitor was, by the power of God, when they sought Christ, transformed into the likenesse of Christ, apprehended for him, and so crucified. Whosoever is apprehended in adultery, is stoned to death, by the power of the Alcoran; but whosoever sinneth with one that is vnmarried, he shall have eighty stripes given him; and the law for a thief is this, if he be caught the first and second tyme he shall have some number of stripes given him, att the third tyme, he shall lose both his hands; att the fourth tyme he shall lose both his feet; and many other lawes too long here to relate.

"The Arabian Jews boasted that twelve of their principal doctors assisted in the composition of the Koran. See D'Herbelot's Bibl. Orient. edit. Schultens. Werner Rolewink, in the Fasciculus Temporum, of which the most beautiful edition is that of Venice, 1481, litt. goth., tells how a Alchoranus liber componit[ur] a machometo [et] tribus magistris suis: quib' diabol' [et auctoritate [et] industria ministrabat: Prim' magister erat quidam inde'astronom' maxim'. Secund' ioannes de antiochia heretic'. Terti' amergi' arrianus: hi, &c. fol. 42, recto. At the commencement of the VIIIth century, is a complaint: α In orientalibus, regionib' circa hec [temp]ora valde defecit vera fides [prop]ter impiam [per]fidi machometi legem [et per con]sequens os virt': Sapia: [et] honestas: de qua lege execrabili tot turpia [et] carnalia prodierunt ficticia: ut nulli un[quam] sapientes in rebus diuinis et humanis exercitati a principio ei crediderunt: sed hores bestiales in desertis morantes. He goes on to say-Sic heu tra olim fructifera: at[que] illustrium viro[rum] fecunda: nunc tribulos [pro]fert [et] spinas eternis incendijs exuremdas. And that although vs [que] hodie: saraceni infinitis diuitijs abundant: [et] pompis inestimalibus at[que] deliciis vacent: t'm ita pueriliter desipiunt: [et per]tinaciter adherent his que sunt [con]tra rationem, ut ois vir doctus ac timorat' eo [rum con]sortium fugiat: [et] eos velut caninos:* ac bestiales cum summo tedio abominent at[que] deuitent. fol. 45.

* The word caninos shews that the words HEATHENE HOUND, so liberally bestowed in our ancient romances, still continued to point out the followers of the Prophet, to the detestation of true believers. Sir Bevis of Hamptoun, (Ellis's Spec. of Rom. II. p. 108,) furnishes the most discourteous application that we can remember of this objectionable "generic appellation," as it is termed by the Antiquary. It may, indeed, be urged in excuse of the youthful knight, that he was then smarting under the effects of a severe beating bestowed by sixty Saracen cavaliers, who, nevertheless, paid for the violence with their lives. We must observe, that the letters placed [thus] in our extracts, are, in the original, represented by certain nexus et abbreviationes, which seldom enter into the economy of a modern printing-establishment; we have, therefore, found it advisable to expand the expressions. We will add, that the book just quoted is adorned with curious cuts, among which are representations of the Pantheon of Venice, with its canals and gondoliers, and of the Ciuitas Edissa: in qua habet

In his character of the second and third Othos, our biographer breaks forth with unusual spirit.

"These two last Emperors have bene such diligent and admirable men, (but for want of historians, their valiant acts are little remembred,) that the one deserved to be called a pale death of the Saracens; and other deserved to be called a wonder of the world." p. 105.

The historian pulls up every now and then in the course of his labours, to record "memorable things about this time." These usually relate to appearances of supernumerary suns and comets ejaculating fire; and are varied by accounts of frequent persecutions, and occasional famines. In the year 1010, there was so general a scarcity, "that in many places they could not gett wine for the priests to vse in the masse.'

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We shall transfer a few of these "memorable things" to our pages.

"In the time of the above-named Emperour Henricus, [i. e. Henry the Second] there were in the Bishoprick of Meydenborgh, in a village, eighteen men and fifteen women in the church-yard dauncing and singing att Christmasse eve, while the priest said masse. The priest came out and cursed them, that they might so daunce and sing for a whole year together, which they did, and in that tyme fell neither raine nor dew upon them; also they grew neither hungry nor drie, nor weary, nor their clothes nor shoes did not wear out. When the year was att an end, they were freed of it, some died presently, some slept three yeares together, some did sheake like the palsie as long as they lived. If this be true, the divell confirms his religion, by the permission of God, with miracles, as more has happened, and shall follow hereafter." p. 108.

The two following are placed between the years 1040 and 1057.

"Att Mayence, arose a tumult, while they were saying masse, by the instigation of the devill, between the Archbisshop's and the Abbot of Fulden's servants, whose lord should sitt next vnto the Emperour; so that they began to feight, and the church was filled with bloud, when the tumult was ceased, and the church was sprinkled with holy water, and that they would make an end of the masse, and that they came to that verse in the Sequentia, Hunc diem gloriosum fecisti, that is, thou hast made this day glorious, a voice of the divell said, this day have I made bloudy; then the people were terrifyed, but the Emperour

[ur] littera scripta manu salvatoris dni nostri iesu [christi]: sub abagaro ipsius civitatis rege. Edessa is also memorable as the first strong hold of the Nestorians.

* Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, &c.

answered and said: 'thou originall of all evill, this day thou hast made full of bloud, but wee, by the grace of God, will make it full of grace vnto the poor,' and this came also to passe, for after service was ended, there was great provision made for the poor, which was a great help to them." p. 109.

Those who are at all conversant with the works of our English Chronicles, will remember the frequent contests, not unattended with violence and even bloodshed, that occurred between the two archbishops for precedency in parliament. Even the primates themselves were not always able to preserve decorum, and Stowe informs us, that upon one occasion, one of the dignitaries proceeded so far as to "thrust his bumme" into the face of his more successful antagonist, to the great scandal of the house. The next story recalls Mr. Southey's Old Woman of Berkeley, who was obliged to mount a high-trotting horse.

"A base witch in England was, after her death, much tormented by the divell, and carryed away in the aire upon a terrible horse, so that they could hear her crye above four miles in lengt." p. 109.

Mr. Southey (Poems II. p. 143, Bristol, 1799) quotes that equivocal personage, Matthew of Westminster, Olaus Magnus, and the Nuremburg Chronicle. If, as we suspect, our MS. be a translation from another language, one of the two last mentioned works, in all probability, supplied the legend. The circumstances leave no doubt of the identity of the old women, though. Florilegus (who gives the story at length) places the date two centuries earlier, viz. A. D. 852. This is by no means the only supernatural coal-black steed upon record. Heywood, (Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, B. IV. p. 252,) relates, that Johannes Teutonicus, canon of Halbersted, in Germany, a great proficient in the art of magic, was, on a christmas day, " transported by the Diuell in the shape of a blacke horse, and seene and heard to say masse the same day, in Halbersted, in Mentz, and in Cullein," [i. e. Cologne.]

"In the year 1274, a noble woman, in the bishoprick of Costnitz, brought an vnnatural birth, like a lionessee, having onely the head of a woman." p. 139.

The following suspicious story is very guardedly told. In the romance of Merlin, the holy Blaise is much confounded at beholding the fiend-babe covered with shaggy hair.

"Att Roome a hairy child, with clawes like a beare, was born of one of the she-friends of Pope Nicolaus;* whereof the Pope was so

* The character of Nicholas III. is tolerably free from reproach, excepting his being unhappily led to join in planning the Sicilian

ashamed, that he caused all the figures of beares in his pallace in St. Angelo to be scratched out." Ibid.

*

"A sea fish, like vnto a lion, was caught this year, in the moneth of February, and brought vnto the Pope Martinus in the old citty, which howled and lamented like a man, so that many, when they heard it, were astonished, admiring it; no man knew what it signifyed." Ibid.

Our readers cannot have forgotten the extensive conflagration of the moors, in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, in July and August; which was, in the first instance, attributed with great probability to the extreme heat of the sun, although it was said that incendiaries were observed afterwards.-The combustion of the graves is worthy of remark:

"Anno 1473, was the drie summer, wherein many woods and fields being fired by the sunn, were burned to ashes; the Bohemian forrest burned eighteen weeks, also the Duringher forrest, the black forrest, and the wood in the mountains, and on the Etsch, also many villages and towns; for all things for want of raine, and a grat heat, became very drie, also the graves grew drie and took fire in many places, and wheresoever the fire took hold, it was consumed this year."

The ensuing atrocities are of later date than the legend of Hugh of Lincoln, and the affecting story of the poor widow's heroic little son, who, going to school, through the streets of Jewry, sang loudly "O alma redemptoris mater," and whose song was triumphant after a cruel martyrdom.

"Anno 1476, the childe of Trent was martyred by the Jews, upon Maundy Thursday, when it was two year and a half olde; the same base wickedness did the jews five yeares after in the citty Mota, scituated in Friaul, with the killing of another childe, therefore three of the murderers were apprehended, and brought to Venice, and there received their reward."

The same year was distinguished in Franconia, by the promulgation of the happy doctrines of no tythes, no taxes, and community of lands.+ The "common people were presently up and swarmed," to Niclaus Huysen, a shepherd and drummer, who declared these glad tidings, by the especial commands of

Vespers. He died before the actual commission of the crime of which he was morally guilty.

* Martin IV.-The old citty, i. e. Civita Vecchia.

+ Burke has extracted John Bale's sermon, in Jack Straw's rebellion, (from Walsingham,) in a note to his appeal to the old Whigs.Works, vol vi. p. 222. 8vo.

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