146 MR. WILLIAM E, A. AXON ON THE 



James Howell found the story in Sir Percy Herbert's 

 ' Certaine Conceptions or Considerations upon the Strange 

 Change of People's Dispositions and Actions in these latter 

 times/ a work "directed to his Sonne " and printed in the 

 year 1652*. Yet HowelFs 'Letters' were printed two 

 years earlier^ as Beloe has pointed outf. But as this 

 apologue is the sixth letter in the fourth volume, it may 

 have been added in a later issue. 



It is also used by Henry More^ the Platonist, in his 

 ' Divine Dialogues/ which were published in 1668. The 

 '' Eremite and the Angel " is in the second dialogue^ chap, 

 xxiv., and follows very closely that given in the ' Gesta Ro- 

 manorum/ to which we shall presently refer. This coin- 

 cidence was pointed out by Mr. S. Whyte at the close of 

 the last century % More's version is as follows : — 



'^ A certain Eremite having conceived great jealousies 

 touching the due administration of Divine Providence in 

 external occurrences in the world, in this anxiety of mind 

 was resolved to leave his cell and travel abroad to see with 

 his own eyes how things went abroad in the world. He 

 had not gone half a day's journey, but a young man over- 

 took him and joyn'd company with him and insinuated 

 himself so far into the Eremite's affection, that he thought 

 himself very happy in that he had got so agreeable a com- 

 panion. Wherefore resolving to take their fortunes 

 together, they always lodged in the same house. Some 

 few days' travels had overpast before the Eremite took 

 notice of any thing remarkable. But at last he observed 

 that his fellow-traveller, with whom he had contracted so 

 intimate a friendship, in an house where they were extra- 



* Lowndes, Bib. Man. (Bohn), p. 1049. Dunlop's ' History of Fiction,'. 

 4tli edit. (1876) p. 290. 



t Beloe, 'Anecdotes of Literatui-e,' vol. Ti. (1812) p. 324. He gires the 

 story in full from Herbert. 



I ' Miscellanea Nova,' by S. and E. A. Whyte, (Dublin, igoo) p. 145. 



