Gesta Romanorum. Translated by the Rev. C. Swan. (George Bell,
London.) (Bohn's Antiquarian Library.)—We have here, translated for the benefit of those who wish to acquaint themselves with the literary aspect of medirevalism, the famous popular story-book of the middle-ages, as this collection of 181 tales may be called. Every story is a religions allegory, and was meant for edification, as well as for amusement. It would seem that the work was composed in the thir- teenth and printed in the fifteenth century, but the whole subject is involved in a good deal of obscurity. An industrious German scholar, Herr Oesterley, thinks it, on the whole, probable that these curious tales had their origin among our own forefathers ; and this ho infers from the fact that the names of dogs in Story 142 are English, or at least Saxon. The title of the book may, he conjectures, indicate that at some very early period stories were taken from Roman history, and utilised as texts for sermons. In the existing collection, many of the stories have an obviously Oriental groundwork, and we have the en- chanted castles with which the "Arabian Nights" have familiarised us. For us the chief interest of the book is in its illustration of mediasval thoughts and ways. The Sacraments of the Church are very prominent, and so, too, are various phases of chivalry. We hear a good deal about
penance, and see very clearly how strong was the belief that hideous crimes might be compounded for by devotion to the Church. It was evidently an age with some pleasant features, the freest hoapitality being a well-established fashion ; and of some very bad ones, as we gather from the frequent stories which turn on the subject of adultery. In fact, it was an ago of so-called faith," and of extremely lax morals and very barbarous ways.
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