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'Yes, sir, the Vulgate a copy older than the Reformation, so not liable to be called an heretical version, said Berenger, to whom a copy had been given by Lady Walwyn, as more likely to be saved if his baggage were searched. 'The other is the Office and Psalter after our English rite; and this last is not mine, but Mr. Sidney's a copy of Virgilius Maro, which he had left behind at Paris.
The lady's name was Febilla, and her family was noble, and her face fairer than any in Rome, but she only mocked Virgilius, and was always playing tricks upon him. To this end, she bade him one day come to visit her in the tower where she lived, promising to let down a basket to draw him up as far as the roof.
Some were half way up the ladders, some had one foot over the wall, but wherever they might chance to be there every man remained, even the emperor and his sorcerer. All day they stayed there like flies upon the wall, but during the night Virgilius stole softly to the emperor, and offered him his freedom, as long as he would do him justice.
But at the end of that time a messenger from his mother arrived in Toledo, begging him to come at once to Rome, as she had been ill, and could look after their affairs no longer. Though sorry to leave Toledo, where he was much thought of as showing promise of great learning, Virgilius would willingly have set out at once, but there were many things he had first to see to.
Virgilius replied that if he had taken her away he had also brought her back, when he might have kept her, and that if they would set him free to return to his own land he would come hither no more. 'Not so! cried the sultan, 'but a shameful death you shall die! And the princess fell on her knees, and begged she might die with him.
They kept in employ the best designers of the day, and such men as Hans Holbein, Albert Aldegræf, Virgilius Solis, and a host known as the “little masters,” supplied the demand with apparent abundance, but it could only be satisfied by the multiplication of these designs by means of the engraver’s art.
The rest of the thieves and there were still many remaining instead of being frightened into honesty, as Virgilius had hoped, prepared rope ladders with hooks to them, and when they heard the sound of the horse's hoofs they stuck their ladders into the walls, and climbed up above the reach of the horse and its rider.
When they were all seated at the feast the princess rose and presented the cup to Virgilius, who directly he had drunk fell into a deep sleep. Then the sultan ordered his guards to bind him, and left him there till the following day.
The emperor, however, was too angry to listen to anything, so Virgilius, whose patience was exhausted, feasted his own followers in the presence of the starving host, who could not stir hand or foot. Things seemed getting desperate, when a magician arrived in the camp and offered to sell his services to the emperor.
No! the Devil is not dead; here is his hoof. How I triumphed and how I fell I have told you already. If I had the gift of Virgilius Maro, and could speak or write in hexameters, in such verses I would compose the "Æneid" of my career as a belligerent. As it is, you can read it all, described in somewhat unflattering language, in the Hungarian newspapers of the period.
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