226. _maister-tour_, principal tower, the donjon or keep-tower. So also
_maistre strete_, principal street, Kn. Ta. 2044 (A. 2902); _maister
temple_, Leg. of Good Women, l. 1016.
230. For _slye_, MS. Hl. has _heigh_, an inferior reading. Mr. Marsh
observes upon this line--'This reasoning reminds one of the popular
explanation of table-turning and kindred mysteries. Persons who cannot
detect the trick ... ascribe the alleged facts to _electricity_.... Men
love to cheat themselves with hard words, and indolence often accepts the
_name_ of a phenomenon as a substitute for the reason of it'; Origin and
Progress of the English Language, Lect. ix. p. 427.
231. The magic mirror in Rome was said to have been set up there by Vergil,
who was at one time reverenced, not as a poet, but as a great enchanter.
The story occurs in the Seven Sages, in the Introduction to his edition of
which Mr. Wright says, at p. lix., 'The story of Virgil's tower, which was
called _salvatio Romae_, holds rather a conspicuous place in the legendary
history of the magician. Such a tower is first mentioned, but without the
name of Virgil, in a Latin MS. of the eighth century, in a passage
published by Docen and republished by Keller, in his introduction to the
_Sept Sages_. Vincent of Beauvais, in the thirteenth century ... describes
Virgil's tower; and it is the subject of a chapter in the legendary history
of Virgilius.' See also the other version of the Seven Sages edited by
Weber, and reprinted in Mätzner's Sprachproben, i. 254; where the _mirror_
is mentioned. [378] Gower tells the story of this mirror in his Confessio
Amantis, bk. v. It occurs also in the Chronicle of Helinand, and in the
Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury; Morley's Eng. Writers, iv. 225.
Warton notes that the same fiction is in Caxton's Troybook, bk. ii. ch. 22.
It also occurs in Higden, Polychronicon, bk. i. c. 24.
232. '_Alhazeni et Vitellonis Opticae_ are extant, printed at Basil, 1572.
The first is supposed by his editor to have lived about A.D. 1100, and the
second to A.D. 1270.'--Tyrwhitt. Hole's Brief Biographical Dictionary has
the notices--'Alhazel or Alhazen, Arabian Astronomer and Optician; died
A.D. 1038'; and--'Vitello or Vitellio, Polish Mathematician; floruit circa
1254.' See also the remarks in Warton (Hist. Eng. Poetry), on the Clerk's
Tale. _Alhacen (sic)_ is mentioned in Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 18234. In l.
18376 of the same, we find the very phrase: 'Par composicions diverses';
and again, in l. 18387: 'Par les diversités des angles.' Mirrors are there
described at length. R. Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, bk. xiii. c.
19, declares that 'the wonderous deuises and miraculous sights and
conceipts made and conteined in glasse, doo farre exceed all other.'
233. Aristotle, the famous Grecian philosopher, born B.C. 384, died 322.
_writen in hir lyves_, wrote in their lifetime. Observe that _writen_ is
here the past tense. The pres. pl. is _wryten_; pt. s. _wrat_, _wrot_, or
_wroot_; pt. pl. _writen_; pp. _writen_.
238. _Thelophus._ Telephus, king of Mysia, in opposing the landing of the
Greeks in the expedition against Troy, was wounded by the spear of
Achilles. But as an oracle declared that the Greeks would require his aid,
he was healed by means of the rust taken from the same spear. Chaucer may
easily have learnt this story from his favourite Ovid, who says--
'Telephus aeterna consumptus tabe perisset
Si non quae nocuit dextra tulisset opem.
Tristium, lib. v. El. 2. 15.