2"'» S. No 61., FlcB. 28. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



163 



another note on the subject may be acceptable. 

 Lord Lindsay observes : 



" A very beautiful legend of a monk on whose heart the 

 Benumbing thought had settled, ' Must not the bliss of 

 eternity pall at last, and shall we not weary of heaven ? ' 

 — and who, after having been beguiled into a wood by a 

 song of a bird, and having passed as it seemed an hour 

 there listening to it, returned to the monastery to find an 

 whole generation had passed away during his absence, 

 and to learn by this experience that an eternity will not 

 suffice to exhaust the bliss of Paradise — has been related 

 with much feeling and beauty by the Rev. R. C. Trench, 

 in his volume entitled The Story of Justin Martin, and 

 other Poems, Lond. 1836.' " — Sketches of the Hist, of 

 Christian Art, vol. i. p. cciv. 



According to the legend, the book which the 

 monk was reading before his trance was the 

 famous treatise of St. Austin, De Civitate Dei, 

 " Of the City of God." The penult chapter of 

 this noble work treats " Of the quality of the 

 Vision with which the Saints shall see God in the 

 World to come ; " and the last chapter treats 

 " Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and 

 the perpetual Sabbath." This is alluded to in 

 the legend: 



" In dem er lesen begann 

 Da traf er diese Stelle an : 

 Dass in dem Himmel wSre 

 Stets Freude ohne Schwere, 

 Und immer ohne Ende." * 



In conclusion, I would ask with Elsie : 



" Do you know the story 

 Of Christ and the Sultan's daughter? 

 That is the prettiest legend of them all." 



Where did Longfellow get this story ? He 

 gives no note upon it. 



In the last number (Feb. 14.) of that most 

 excellent and ably-conducted periodical, The 

 Saturday Review, appeared an article on " French 

 Romance in the Thirteenth Century," being a re- 

 view of a collection of five Nouvelles Franqoises, 

 published in Paris last year by MM. Moland et 

 C. D'Hericault. I subjoin a passage from this 

 article, as it relates to the subject of my Note : 



" One of the most interesting portions of the editors' 

 pi'eface is their history of the Romance of Amis and 

 Aniile, the Orestes and Py lades of the Middle Ages. After 

 a careful critical examination into the oi'igin of the tale 

 and its historical foundation, together with a statement 

 of their grounds for believing it to be a poem grafted on 

 an Ecclesiastical chronicle, MM. Moland and D'Hericault 

 proceed to trace the successive transformations which 

 the story underwent. As they remark, an account of 

 these alone might furnish materials for an 'entire Philo- 



* With regard to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, to 

 which I before referred, and the Seven Sleepers of the 

 North, see Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells, 

 p. 606., and Soane's New Curios, of Lit., vol. ii. p. 104. 

 As the latter writer observes, the legend has been repeated 

 by a multitude of Mahometan writers, and Mahomet 

 has even mserted it in the Koran. 



sophic History of Literature — indicating, as it does, 

 clearly and i\x\\y, the influences affecting, at each period 

 of their career, at each stage of their development, the 

 legends, the Chansons de gestes, the poems, all the literary 

 materials, all the historic events, which, appropriated, 

 transformed, and dignified by poetry, have thus been mys- 

 teriously preserved for us during the Carlovingian age, 

 and brought down to the threshold of the Renaissance.' 

 . . . We may add that the miraculous cure of Amis, in 

 the romance oi Amis and Amile, has a striking similarity 

 to another Eastern tale — not, perhaps, so well known as 

 the one we have just mentioned. Tue Arabian chronicler 

 speaks of a king who, having lost a faithful servant by 

 his transformation into stone, is told that he can call his 

 friend back to life if he is willing to behead his two chil- 

 dren, and to sprinkle the ossified figure with their blood. 

 He makes up his mind to the sacrifice, but, as he ap- 

 proaches the children with his drawn sword, the will is 

 accepted by Heaven for the deed, and he suddenly sees 

 the stone restored to animation. In the story of the 

 Western friends and martyrs, we have Amile commanded 

 by the angel to cure Amis of leprosy by precisely the same 

 means, and we see the same readiness on the part of the 

 father to comply with the required condition. In this 

 case, however, the miracle is at once more pretentious and 

 less artistic. The children are actually beheaded, and 

 Amis is washed in their blood ; but when the two friends 

 return from church, whither they had repaired to render 

 thanks for the cure of Amis, they find them miraculously 

 brought back to life. In both stories the mother of the 

 boys is absent at prayers during the performance of the 

 miracle, and, on her return, entirely approves of the sup- 

 posed sacrifice. These and other points of resemblance, 

 taken in conjunction with the decidedly Oriental character 

 of the tale of the Emperor Coustant, serve to show that 

 the Western literature of the middle ages, if not actually 

 drawing its inspirations from that of the East, was at 

 least linked with it in close and constant communication. 

 " In their preface the editors promise us a collection of 

 prose tales of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in 

 which they will ' recal to the memory of the reader all 

 the influences which occupy the literary stage down to 

 the Renaissance.' We shall most gladly welcome the 

 publication of these romances, if they depict, half as 

 vividly as the present series, the manners and spirit of 

 their age. In the meantime, we sincerely thank MM. 

 Moland and D'Hericault for this unpretending but truly 

 valuable contribution to the history of an early European 

 literature." 



EittlONNACH. 



SUAKSFEABIANA. 



Cymheline, Act V. Sc. 5. — 



" The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter. 

 Which we call mollis aer ; and mollis aer 

 We term it mulier : which mulier, I divine. 

 Is this most constant wife." 



Upon the passage which contains these lines 

 Coleridge remarks : 



" It is not easy to conjecture why Shakespeare should 

 have introduced this ludicrous scroll, which answers no 

 one purpose, either propulsive, or explicatory, unless as a 

 joke on etymology." — JVotes on Shakespeare, i. 131. 



But, the "joke on etymology " is somewhat 

 older than Shakspeare's time. In the Origincs 



