“Your instances of conversion, Lathom,” said Thompson, “remind me of Washington Irving’s vision in the library of the British Museum, when all the old writers leapt down from their shelves and despoiled the moderns of the patchwork garments, made of the shreds of countless writers, and left them plucked of their borrowed plumes.”
“Nay,” replied Lathom, “rather of those few who had borrowed gems from the writers of old, and by new setting and repolishing so improved their original lustre that the former owner was eager to tender his thanks to his modern adapter, who had renewed his long-lost glories.”
“I am afraid your old monks would have had as many to pluck of their borrowed plumes as to compliment on their ingenuity as working jewellers,” said Thompson.
“The process of recovery would be curious in some cases,” said Herbert: “the modern adapter would have to settle with Lydgate or Gower; the old poet would resign his title to the middle-age monk or chronicler; and he perhaps be finally stripped of his gem by some Eastern fabler.”
“Be sure that Shakspeare, Parnell, and Schiller would meet with more thanks than reproaches,” was Lathom’s reply, as he closed his book for that evening.
Curiosities of the Gesta—THE WICKED PRIEST—The Qualities of the Dog—THE EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER—Curious Application—THE EMPEROR LEO AND THE THREE IMAGES—An Enigma.
“The use Shakespeare has made of your monks’ tales would seem to augur a certain popularity of the work in the days in which he wrote,” said Herbert, when the friends met on their sixth evening.
“A greater popularity than will now be credited: in the reign of Elizabeth and her successor, the Gesta Romanorum seems to have been sufficiently well known to admit of a frequent reference to it on the stage,” replied Lathom.
“Allusions to the work, not incidents from it?” asked Herbert.
“Yes, in the anonymous comedy of Sir Giles’ Goose Cap, published early in James’ reign, one of the characters speaks of the ‘quips and quick jests of his lordship as so good that Gesta Romanorum were nothing to them’; whilst Chapman in his ‘May-Day,’ which dates in 1611, says, ‘one that has read Marcus Aurelius, Gesta Romanorum, and the Mirror of Magistrates, to be led by the nose like a blind bear that has read nothing!’”