and Queries, in his excellent collection of
Ancient English Fictions.

The necromantic Virgil of the dark ages was
supposed by our ancestors to be the same
person with the great poet. This tradition may
simply have resulted from the tendency of the
popular mind in uninstructed times to attribute
Satanic dealings to all men of unusual intellect.
Virgil, indeed, is not the only Latin poet who has
been converted into a sorcerer by vulgar
ignorance and superstition; for the good-natured,
easy-hearted man of the world, Horace, is still
revered in the neighbourhood of Palestrina as a
powerful and benevolent wizard. In the case of
Virgil, however, the belief is thought to have been
occasioned by the mystical character of the Sixth
Book of the Æneid, where the Sibyl conducts
Æneas to the infernal regions; by the magical
incantation described in the Eighth Pastoral; and
by the fact of Virgil's grandfather having borne
the name of Maius, which was confounded with
the word Magus, a magician. It is certain that
in the neighbourhood of Naples, where he was
buried, he has been long regarded as an
enchanter—a reputation which Beckford found in
full swing when he visited the spot in 1780;
and that the learned folly of the Sortes
Virgilianæ prevailed all over the civilised world
for ages. The same species of divination was
practised by the learned with the productions
of the Mantuan poet, as has been in vogue
amongst the illiterate with the Bible. As far
back as the twelfth century, the necromantic
legends connected with the name of Virgil had
acquired a deep and extended root; and early
in the following century they were collected in
the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury, who
had visited Naples, and seen some of the
marvellous works which Virgil was said to have
contrived. Other writers followed in the same
wake; and from their several productions we
learn a great deal about the Augustan poet
which he would have been utterly astonished to
learn himself. According to these chroniclers
(as we find set forth by Mr. Thoms in his
Preface to the old romance), Virgilius placed on a
certain gate of Naples two immense images of
stone, one of which was handsome and merry,
the other sad and mis-shaped; and whoever
came in by the side of the former prospered in
all his affairs, while those who entered by the
latter were sure to be unfortunate. He set
up on a high mountain near the same city a
brazen statue, having in its mouth a trumpet,
which sounded so loud when the north wind
blew that the flames and smoke issuing from the
neighbouring forges of Vulcan were driven back
over the sea. He made a public fire, at which
any one might freely warm himself (a rather
doubtful benefit at Naples, one would think);
and near the fire he stationed a brazen archer
with his arrow drawn out, and underneath it
this inscription: " If any one strike me, I will
shoot off my arrow;" which one day really took
place, a certain man having struck the archer;
whereupon, away went the arrow, and the foolish
experimentalist at the point, of it, straight into
the heart of the lire, which was extinguished at
once and for ever. Among his other contrivances,
Virgilius caused the safety of the city
of Naples to depend upon what seems a very
frail and treacherous security—viz. an egg; for
he not only made the foundation of eggs, but
he suspended a magical egg on the top of a
high tower, ordaining that when the egg stirred
the town should shake, and when it broke the
town should sink.* It is curious to find a trace
of this superstition in the statutes of the Order
du Saint Esprit, instituted in 1352, according
to which a chapter of the knights was to be
held every year at " the Castle of the Enchanted
Egg," near the grotto of Virgil.

The romance of Virgilius presents most of
these popular legends in the form of a connected
narrative. The title-page sets forth that " this
boke treateth of the Lyfe of Virgilius, and of
his Deth, and many marvayles that he dyd in
his lyfetyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye,
thorowgh the helpe of the Devyls of Hell;" so
that we start with a very comprehensive idea of
the poet's infernal abilities and achievements.
We ought to observe, by the way, that no
mention is anywhere made of the literary productions
of the hero. The Æneid and the Georgics might
never have been composed, for anything we are
told about them by the old romance-writer; yet
there can be no doubt that the ideal magician
was originally associated with the real poet. It
is very difficult, however, to trace the connexion.
Virgil the poet was of humble origin; Virgil the
enchanter is described as a relative of the family
of Remus, brother of the founder of Rome, and
is said in the old story-book to have been born
not long after the epoch of the wolf- suckled
twins. He was a native, not of Mantua, but of
Raynes, wherever that may be; and he acquired
his remarkable powers in a way of which ancient
biographers make no mention. When he was a
boy, he was walking about with his schoolfellows,
one holiday, amongst the hills. Perceiving a
great hole in the side of one of those uplands,
he ventured in, and penetrated so far that he
was in total darkness. He went still further,
and saw a little glimmering light, which
encouraged him to proceed. Presently, he heard
a voice calling, " Virgilius, Virgilius!" But he
could see no one. He cried out, " Who calleth
me?" And the voice said, " Virgilius, see you
not that little board lying beside you there,
marked with a word?" Virgilius answered that
he saw the board plainly; and then the voice
said, " Remove it, and let me out." But the
boy was gifted with a discretion beyond his
years, and he asked, " Who art thou that talkest
to me thus?" " I am a devil," answered the
voice, "conjured out of the body of a certain man,
and banished here until the day of judgment,

* In the old romance, the egg is coupled with
an apple, which the writer calls "a napyll," and
appears to derive from that singular mis-spelling the
name of the city,—" Napels"! But the confusion
with regard to names, places, aud periods, all through
the story, is most amusing.