1 6 NETHER LOCHABER. 



the magic of Virgil, and to nothing else, that the south of Italy is 

 indebted for all the earthquakes and subterranean convulsions that 

 have afflicted it for centuries ■! Yet so it is, if we are to credit all 

 the stories of " Virgilius the Magician " that were current during 

 the Middle Ages. The celebrated Benedictine monk, Bernard de 

 Montfaucon, author of Antiquite Expliquee one of the most 

 learned and curious works in existence, repeats the story as it was 

 told and credited in the Dark Ages. The following is from an old 

 translation, quoted by Scott in his notes to the Lay of the Last 

 Minstrel, in illustration of the magical spells attributed to the 

 Ladye of Branksome Tower. Virgil it seems, among other things, 

 was famous for his gallantries. On one occasion he fell in love 

 with and carried away the daughter of a certain " Soldan," and 

 the story proceeds : — " Than he thoughte in his mynde how he 

 myghte marye hyr, and thoughte in his mynde to founde in the 

 middes of the see a fayer towne, with great landes belongynge to 

 it ; and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells (Naples). 

 And the foundacyon of it was of egges, and in that town of Napells 

 he made a tower with iiii. corners, and in the toppe he set an apell 

 upon an yron yarde, and no man culde pull away that apell without 

 he brake it ; and thoroughe that yren set he a bolte, and in that 

 bolte set he an egge, and he henge the apell by the stauke upon a 

 cheyne, and so hangeth it still. And when the egge styrreth so 

 should the town of Napells quake ; and when the egge brake, then 

 shulde the town sinke. When he made an ende, he lette calls it 

 Napells." Thomas of " Ercildoune," and he of " Balivearie," and 

 the two Merlins, — for there were two of them, the Merlin of the 

 Arthurian legends, and Merdwtjnn Wylet, or IMorlin the Wild, who 

 seems to have been a Scotchman, and whose grave is still pointed 

 out beneath an aged thorn-tree at Drumelzier in Twcoddale, — these 

 were accounted groat magicians and " pretty fellows in their day ;" 

 but what were they to Virgilius the earthqualcer, who at least 



