Chapter 1
A MISERERE. In the Orlando Innamorato, Malagigi, the necromancer, puts all the company to sleep by reading to them from a book. Some books have this power of themselves and need no necromancer. Fearing, gentle reader, that mine may be of this kind, I have provided these introductory chapters, from time to time, like stalls or Misereres in a church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads over them, where thou mayest sit down and sleep. No,--the figure is not a bad one. This book does somewhat resemble a minster, in the Romanesque style, with pinnacles, and flying buttresses, and roofs, "Gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions Made of fine gold, with divers sundry dragons." You step into its shade and coolness out of the hot streets of life; a mysterious light streams through the
- Writer
