1883. j 61 [Crane, 
if closely examined, will be seen to be possibly true, e@ g., the story of the 
obstinate woman thrown into the water, who could not speak but moved 
her fingers to represent a pair of scissors—here the collector naively adds : 
‘Potuit enim daemon cuius rabiosa illa foemina praeda erat, ipsius 
articulos in eam formam composuisse.’’ The increasing secular character 
of these works is indicated by another passage in the preface; ‘‘Deinde 
si qua ineredibilia, vel fabulosa, vel tantum ad ciendum risum efficta 
videntur, qualia paucissima sunt, solum in navigiis, vehiculis, mensis 
vel iucundis congressibus narranda serventur.’’? The scope of the work 
has been enlarged, it is no longer addressed exclusively to preachers, 
but to the ‘prudens concionator, cathecista vel narrator.’? We think 
we can also notice a distinct advance in the character of the stories ; 
more historical incidents are introduced, and the number of puerile 
monkish stories is much smaller. Our space will not allow us to exam- 
ine in detail this vast compilation ; many of the stories in the Promptua- 
rium are to be found in it, and it must have served to spread many stories at 
atime when the taste for the older colléctions was rapidly diminishing.* This 
is perhaps the most appropriate placerto describe several collections in the 
vulgar tongues, which, so faras their scope goes, are purely secular. We 
mention these works here rather than in connection with the Gesta Roma- 
norum, because they seem to us more appropriately classed here by their 
form. They are alphabetical, or ar ranged topically for convenience of ref- 
* A work similar to the Speculum Hxemplorum is, A. Davroult, Soc. Jes., Flores 
exemplorum, in quo Fides Catholica poene innumeris et exemplis sanctorum, et 
vivorum illustrium probatissimis conjirmatur. Colonize, “1656, 1686, 4to, Other 
works of this class might be mentioned here, but we will merely call the atten- 
tion of scholars to two collections of medieval moralized tales described by the 
Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy in a paper read before that body, 
April 10, 1882, and entitled, ‘‘On two Collections of Mediwval Moralized Tales,” 
by John K, Ingram, LL.D., F. T. C. D., Dublin, 1882, These collections are found 
in MSS. belonging to the Diocesan Library of Derry. The first is in two parts, 
one containing exempla arranged topically; the other is arranged in alphabeti- 
‘cal order, ‘and the subjects are illustrated not by stories or anecdotes, but by 
Sentences quoted apparently from various authors,” The second is entitled, 
Speculum sive lumen laycorum, The arrangement is alphabetically by topics. 
T cannot do better than quote Dr. Ingram’s account of the sources used by the 
compiler, “The materials of the work are borrowed from a great variety of 
authors. The classical writers of antiquity are but little quoted ; there are ref- 
erences to Aristotle—some of whose works were known through Latin versions 
—to Cicero, Horace, Valerius Maximus, and Seneca, But the sources on which 
the compiler has drawn most largely, are the writings of St. Augustine, espe- 
Cially the De Oivitate Dei, the Historia Tripartita of Cassiodorus, the Dialogues 
of St, Gregory, the collection known as Vite Patrum, the curious treatise en- 
tited Barlaam and Josaphat, various Lives of Saints, the Disciplina Clericalis ot 
Petrus Alfonsus, and the works of St. Isidore of Seville, of Bede, of Jacobus de 
Vitriaco, of Peter of Clugny (otherwise known as Peter the Venerable), and of 
Jacobus de Voragine, author of the Legenda Aurea, * * * Some of the narra- 
tives appear to have been taken, not from books, but from popular rumor or 
tradition, commencing as they do with Fertur simply. In the moralizations 
very large use is made of the Old and New Testament, with the text of which 
the compiler seems to have been thorougly familiar,” 
