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Gornell University Library
Sthaca, New York

 

. FROM THE

BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY

COLLECTED BY

BENNO LOEWY

1854-1919

BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY
The date shows when this volume was taken.

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| Z1001 .P88 1

| Excursions in

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| olin

Cornell University aeesey
1896

ii iit
EXCURSIONS IN LIBRARIA
EXCURSIONS IN LIBRARIA
BEING RETROSPECTIVE REVIEWS AND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY G. H.

POWELL

“For books, we know,
Are a substantial world.” — Wordsworth.

New York
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

153-157 FIFTH AVENUE
1896

eT be
A Closet

Ricwarp Cray AND Sons, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
OF the papers which follow the first is reprinted from Macmillan’s
Magazine (‘A Discourse of Rare Books,” July, 1893), and the last, in
part, from the Pall Mall Magazine (February, 1895), with the kind
permission of the respective proprietors. Both articles are here
presented in a revised and enlarged form, the latter, in fact, having
been entirely rewritten.
PREFACE

SOME apology may be necessary for offering to the public,
so abundantly supplied of late years with “books about
books,” another volume which can hardly help falling into that
category. The present work, however, addresses itself (with
all the misgivings of a first venture) rather to the humane
interests of the general reader, than to what may respectfully
be called the refined curiosities of the bibliophile, to the
collector of books, that is, as books, and not as antiquities or
objects of exoteric vzrtz,! in fine, to the bookbuyer who is
also, and by virtue of his office, a “voracious” reader, even if
he be not one of those

“* Bibliophagi, or men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders ”

from excessive application to study. “Excursions,” in
Libraria or elsewhere, do not profess to be explorations, or to
serve any serious industrial demand, although (within their
inevitable limits) the zotes de voyage of one tourist may have
a certain use and interest for others. This is the only excuse

1 See Ch. I, pp. 15 and 31.
viii PREFACE

for publishing a selection of those “marked passages ” and
“marginal (or flyleaf) notes” which accumulate during the
unconscious labour of love expended in years of book-
collecting.

Two or three of the chapters that follow might be described
as sketches of “periods” or of “lost points of view,” illus-
trated from contemporary sources of the fourteenth, the
sixteenth, and the eighteenth centuries respectively. The
Gascon Tragedy and the Pirate's Paradise rehearse more or
less well-known romances of history. In the longer essay
on memoirs, and in those dealing with rare books (or rather
the principles which govern the practice of book-buying), and
with early mythological literature, a conscientious if mis-
guided attempt has been made ,to present—in an inevitably
discursive fashion, but with some sense of proportion—a
general survey (from the point of view of the practical reader
and collector), of a larger province of that “world of books ”
which, if not always as “pure and good” as the poetry of
Mr.Wordsworth, is at least always human.

The insertion throughout the latter chapters of so many
dates and parenthetical details will, I hope, be excused by
readers who have these things at their fingers’ ends, in con-
sideration of those who, like the author, hanker after chrono-
logical landmarks along the highroads of—

‘* The dusty travelled past.”

With regard to the criticisms and descriptions of books
(old or modern), which occupy almost all the notes and a great
part of the text of this volume, I need only say that the
works familiarly cited and quoted are almost all in my own
possession. These comprise possibly a few “out of the
PREFACE ix

way” books, and one or two such as are commonly called
“rare,” and might not be found even in reputable libraries.
But I have not, except in the first chapter, referred to any
work except on the ground that it was (to persons debarred
from purchasing a more modern or more expensive edition)
at least worth having, for reasons more fully diagnosed in
the text.

In estimating the importance of form and typography as
affecting the question whether the average individual is likely
to read a book with pleasure or profit, or even to read it at
all, and the considerable proportion of “old books” periodi-
cally in danger of being slighted or forgotten by all but their
actual custodians, there is sometimes a danger of confounding
human (that is historical, or literary) and merely “bookish”
interest. In regard to the former, I have spared the reader
no reference to any original work likely to rouse his interest
or curiosity, though I fear I cannot add—his envy or
regret.

Notes and references have thus, in spite of every desire to

_ exclude vanities and repetitions, swelled to such a bulk, that
the only excusable addition seemed an index, which is offered
as an apology for the digressions of which several chapters
are largely composed.

The “we” of the retrospective reviewer, inextricably em-
bedded in the one long bibliographical article which has
already appeared in print, has been allowed to permeate the
text with no further idea than that of associating the reader
in an amicable “ voyage autour d’une bibliothéque choisie,” of
which imagination and the proximity of Bloomsbury have
slightly extended the bounds.

Of the ornaments, devices, etc., with which my publishers
x PREFACE

have illustrated the more specially bibliographical chapters of
the book, the greater part are taken from works, chiefly of
the sixteenth century,! in my own collection.

To these memoranda of cherished possessions and respected
printers may be added the woodcut on p. 40, the “brasse
plate” from Pagitt’s Herestography, and a portrait of Voltaire,
with which I hope some readers may be unacquainted. For”
the more remarkable reproduction from the Divrectorium vite
humane (1480), which forms the frontispiece to the chapter
on mythology, and the exquisite little woodcut from the
Dyalogus creaturarum of the same date; as for those taken
from the (equally rare) Vérard edition of the Comte de Foix’s
Book on Field Sports, and the plate from Exquemelin’s
Buccaneers, recourse has been had to the treasure-house of
the British Museum, and to the unfailing kindness and
courtesy of its officials.

G. H. POWELL.

2 THANET PLACE, STRAND,
September 5th, 1895.

1 See pp. 36 and 77.
Il.

III.

Iv.

VI.

VII.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, &C.

. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. . 5 - 24

A GASCON TRAGEDY (I4TH CENTURY) .

A SHELF OF OLD STORY BOOKS
I. THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

II. AN IMPROVING WORK

THE PIRATES’ PARADISE (1740)

. A MEDLEY OF MEMOIRS

WITH RABELAIS AT ROME (1536)
THE WIT OF HISTORY

INDEX

PAGE
vu

xiii

49

77

100

121

149

207

229

261
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Bes
Woodcut (Scholars in a Library) from a rare edition of Sallust. 8vo. se

Lyons, 1509 . : : ; ; , . ‘ - : : 2
Device of Sebast. Gryphius, from Sadoledd Epistole. 8vo. 1554 . 7
Device of Ant. Gryphius from a MJacrodius. 12mo. 1585 wee 7
Device of J. Oporinus of Basle a : 8
Device of Plantin-Moretus Press (2) ek oy Os 9
Device of Nic. de Sabio, from the grammar of Constantine Lascaris.

8vo. 1539. 5 i é 2 ; é ‘ é . <&I7
Variant of the same (from last leaf of the same volume), with auto-

graph of Estienne Baluaee . .  .. ee ee ee ee

Device from Péstole Vulgari di N. Franco ap. Ant.Gardanum. 1542 23

From Title-page of Francesco Guicciardint gli ultimd quattro librt,
ed. Papirio Picedi (not a common edition), ap. Seth Viotto.
Parma, 4to, 1572 we Oe. BE Hoo. we. ee 9 BO
xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Device of Guillaume Morel. 1562 . : ‘ . 36

Woodcut from Amadis de Gaule (French translation by Ant. Tyron.
4to. Lyons,1574) . . . . ‘ : 39

Device of Antoine Estienne (1631). . . . . 41

Woodcut from the Comte de Foix’s Deduzcts de la Chasse des Bestes
(printed by Ant. Vérard, 1507). . . . . . . 48

Device from Title-page of the Chronicles of Froissart, edition
published by Jan de Tournes. 3 vols. Folio. Lyon, 1559-60-61 50

Woodcut from De Foix’s Deduzcts de la Chasse . ; 74
Woodcut from the Divectorium humané vité. 1480 76
Woodcut from the Dyalogus creaturarum. 1480 99

Plate from Exquemelin’s History of the Buccaneers. 4to. 1678 . 122

Tail-piece of Jacob Tonson’s (1725) e. a J Oe 148

Ornamental Title-page from Gaguin’s Compendium de gestis Fran-
corum., 514 2 & me 4 w JA! do we SeSa5O

Device for Title-page of Deltbatio Historie Africane. 8vo. 1569 . 164

Device from Title-page of Mathieu's Héstocre des dernicrs troubles,
etc, (9610). eae . 174
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv

PAGE
Device from Title-page of P. V. de Cayet’s ad Septenatre
(1607). , B wwe aoe oh Jae, oe » 4 le aed
Device from Title of Ludov. Guicciardini’s Azst. of Wars in Low
Countries. ato. 1565... at fin Oke ides ae) a. Se IGS
Device from Title of Elzevirian Edition of Bentivoglio’s H7st. of
War in Flanders . 180
Portrait of T. Venner, from Pagztt’s Heresiography. 8vo. 1662. . 188
Portrait of Voltaire, from his Lettres inédites. 8vo. 1818. . «=. -:195
Device of Sebastian Gryphius, from Azeronymi vide poemata. 8vo.
Lugduni. 1536. . . . fis, Ge. a wes Sh 221

The Initial Letters of the Chapters are reduced from the Froissart
printed by Jan de Tournes (described on p. 49), all but that prefixed
to Chap. IV., which is from the Déaloght piacevoli di N. Franco (as
to whom see p. 22). Gioliti: in Venetia. 8vo. 1542.
I.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.
 

Woodcut of scholars in a library (exhibiting the early method of arranging books) from a very
__ rare edition of Sallust, sm. 8vo. Lyons, s. a. (1509), discovered for me by the kindness of Mr.
Pollard, of the British Museum. (Grenville Library, C. 8, f. 14.)
THE PHILOSOPHY -OF RARITY.

“* He peeped into a rich bookseller’s shop,
Quoth he, ‘ We are both of one college’!
For I sate myself, like a cormorant, once
Hard by the tree of knowledge,”
Coleridge.

ie Ta tweet noble industry and royal sport of book-hunting

vs te may safely be asserted to be as old as literature—
Bas literature, that is, inscribed upon any material
more portable than that of the Rosetta stone.

It would be difficult to feel sure that the earliest
papyrus ever marked by human hand was not immediately afterwards
destroyed by the rivalry of would-be proprietors, and as soon as the
first “book” came into existence nothing short of a military despo-
tism can have preserved it in the possession of a single owner. The
gossiping Aulus Gellius has handed down the tradition of Aristotle’s
extravagance at the sale of Speusippus, and Plato’s unjustifiable
purchase (so severely criticised by Timon) of a particular work of
Philolaus the Pythagorean. Such collectors truly held to the motto
of our own philobiblical Richard de Bury (to whom the story of the
Sibylline leaves suggested a moral for the auction-room) “ Libri non
libre.” The passion, growing by what it fed on, raged desperately
B 2

 
4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

in the middle ages. Pope Sylvester II. had, in the tenth century,
to borrow so simple a work as Cesar, in return for eight volumes of
Boethius on Astrology, and three hundred years later Roger Bacon
complained that he could not get even a minor work of Cicero for
love or money And it reached a triumphant crisis at the dawn of
the Renaissance, when one of the most immortal classics might be
looked for and found ‘“‘at the bottom of a disused well” (or
wherever it was that Bracciolini discovered the Quintilian), and his.
learned rival Aurispa could return from a single book-hunting
expedition laden with 238 ancient manuscripts, containing all the
works of Plato, Xenophon, Arrian, and Diodorus Siculus, the
Geography of Strabc, and the Poems of Pindar.

Such were the “rarities” of those golden days; and comparing
them with the works, or rather things, most sought after in our own,
we might be disposed to think that the age of true “ book-hunting ”
was no more; nay, when we contemplate catalogues crowded with
really classical items (ancient or modern) labelled se/ten, rarissimo,
introuvable, and unigue, we may be moved to ask indignantly, what
has posterity—the posterity of the fifteenth century—done, since
that date, but lose or damage the works it should have taken most
care of ?

But this would be a harsh judgment, for posterity, including
the nineteenth century, has had so many more things to think
about.

And though we can never hope to make such “finds” as did the
agents of Lorenzo the magnificent, the process of discovery, and re-
discovery is as eternal as the art and mystery of losing books.

Thus the “ Philosophy” we here struggle to expound is but the
craft and “ venerie ” of the book-hunter.

It is hardly necessary to observe that as the mere unfrequent
occurrence of a phenomenon is no index of its importance, so the
fact that a particular book, or any other given chattel, is seldom to
be seen is no evidence of its intrinsic value—should in fact be
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 5

rather the reverse, proportionately to our belief in the intelligence
of mankind, although the rarity of a book, again, must be dis-
‘tinguished from the difficulty of obtaining it.

This whole subject is excellently treated in the ‘“ Axiomata
‘Specialia” prefixed to that interesting and not very common work
of reference, Vogt’s Catalogus Historico-Criticus Librorum Rariorum
(fourth enlarged edition, 8vo, Frankfort, 1793). Prefacing the dis-
cussion with the remark that rarity is by itself no proof of value
(some of the worst and some of the most worthless books being the
most difficult to procure), he and his editors classify “rare books”
under a copious variety of headings which we shall not here attempt
to exhaust.

First and foremost in any such attempted classification would, of
course, be ranked early works dating from the invention of printing
to about 1520 or 1530. The casual reader may here be reminded
that what is commonly believed to be the first book printed is the
magnificent edition of the Vulgate known (since its rediscovery in
the Mazarine Library by De Bure in the last century) as the 42 line
“‘Mazarine” Bible, the “Hopetoun” copy of which (Sir John
‘Thorold’s brought £3,900) was recently sold to Mr. Quaritch for
2,000, and is duly described in his catalogue as produced at
Maintz defore 1456. It has indeed been assigned to 1450, or 1454;
.and a copy is to be seen among the specimens of early printing in the
British Museum. From the conclusion of the aforesaid period every
decade that one recedes the volumes pertaining thereto naturally rise
in price by something like geometrical progression, and to go back
further, ‘‘ Block-books,” which flourish from 1440 to 1480 or there-
abouts, and do not trouble the bibliophile much upon his daily
rounds, must all be described as tolerably rare, since only about 100
are known to exist.! Yet of recent years, owing to the dispersal of
so many large libraries, books of the fifteenth century have been at
times almost a drug in the market. A folio volume bound in such

1 Gordon Duff, Zarly Printed Books, 1893.
6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

pigskin as the invaders of Italy loved to use for saddles (the feelings
of the cingue-cento war-horse are not recorded), comprising a splendid
and spotless specimen of printing dated 1475, wrought with such ink
and paper as men make not now, was purchased retail by the writer
of these presents for only 20s. Works of the last two decades of that
century are comparatively easy to procure, not seldom for a few
shillings apiece, where no interest but the date of production attaches.
to them; while anything printed between 1460 and 1470, when the
first enthusiasm for the invention produced such superlative work-
manship, still keeps a high value.

As to the question of interest (humane, that is, and literary), the
early printed book is as a rule very deficient in this respect. Apart
from the classics (and it is amazing how many Latin authors 1—
Hallam gives a list of them—were reproduced before 1500), Bibles,
Theology, and Hagiology, are the chief and certainly the most
artistically beautiful products of the press at this period, not that
the collector anxious to possess an “‘incunable ” of real literary and
intellectual value need hesitate to squander #50 or #100 on such a
work as the first edition of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, fol. 1467
(without name or place). Next to the absolutely earliest specimens.
of printing we may put the most celebrated editions of Latin and
Greek classics and other authors published by the most famous.
printers (also in many cases their own editors) during the whole
period of the Renaissance. The art of printing, originally born at
some yet disputed date between 1450 and 1460, as well as of what.
may be called publishing, experienced a sort of chronic regeneration
in one direction or another, in the matter of type, size, or some other
detail, at the hands of the celebrated representatives of the Giunta,
Aldus, Estienne, and Gryphius families. The Plantin establishment
at Antwerp is equally famous, retaining its excellence during all the

1 Among these a special interest attaches to the very early and valuable first
edition of Tacitus (folio, circum 1468) wanting ¢he first five books of the Annals,
which are described in the edition of 1515 as ‘‘ nuper in Germania reperti.’
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 7

latter half of the sixteenth century. The first privilege was granted
in 1554, and in the half-century that followed probably no press in
Europe turned out a larger proportion of useful books.! In the

 

 

Device on last leaf of Sadoleti Epistole ap. Sebast.
Gryphium. 1554.

 

VIRTVTE DVCE,
‘VNALYOL ILZINOD

LVPGDSYNI,.
APVD ANT. GRYPHIVM.
M be LXXXYV.

Macrobii Saturnalia. r2mo. 1585. (Device on title.)

1 Of the “‘ Plantins” in my possession I should be inclined to give the palm for
practical neatness and legibility to the pocket edition of Boethzus, 18mo, 1562,
and the Epzstolae Clenardi (“‘ rare, care, preeclare,” as an ancient authority calls
them), 8vo, 1566. Inthe Boethzus the device appears in a very simple form—witb
8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

catalogue of the museum at Antwerp,! which occupies the original
premises of this press, it is stated that its founder (Christopher Plan-
tin) produced on an average fifty works a year, and about fifteen
hundred in all. It would be interesting to know what proportion of
these are now in Great Britain. A large number, and still more of
those published by Balthasar Moretus I. (1610-1641), are elaborately
illustrated.

But for modern days, and for London, where incredibly im-
mense stocks of second-hand books are now collected, the second

 

Cum Cat. Maret. grils 1 & “ priuilegio
ad decennium.

Device of Jo. Oporinus (J. Herbst, ob. 1568) of Basle.

axiom must be confined to earlier work. Classics, ancient and
modern, however excellent their execution, having vastly declined
in value since the beginning of the present century, are now much
more easily met with. The Stephanus Editio Princeps of Appian
(folio, 1551), a very creditable piece of printing, is commoner than

the legs of the compass not twenty-five degrees apart. In the /ornandes, 8vo,
1597 (also an excellently printed work),‘they have expanded to twice that distance.

1 Cataloguedu Musée Plantin-Moretus, par Max Rooses, Conservateur. 2™¢ ed.
Anvers, 1883.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 9

 

Device of Plantin-Moretus press, a late specimen (17th
century, date mislaid.)

 

Device on title of Clenardi Epistole ex off. Christophori Plantin. 1566.

many English productions of the nineteenth century. The first,
spendidly executed edition of Cardinal Bembo’s Historize Venetz
—a work of quite insignificant historical value—bearing the same
10° THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

date, cannot be called rare, and excellent specimens of the Plantin-
Moretus press can be unearthed with surprising facility at almost
any second-hand shop. This remarkable state of things is only to
be accounted for by that avidity on the part of English collectors
of the last century, which had attracted the notice of earlier biblio-
graphers than Vogt. The private libraries, and consequently the
booksellers’ shops of this country, have for long been probably
much better stocked with literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries than any others equally distant from the great printing
centres of the Continent.

We have already remarked that a book is not necessarily very rare
because it is seldom seen in the market, since it may, in stock-
broking language, be “well held” in many quarters. Again, a
book may be merely so rare that you may spend a dozen years look-
ing for it, without being so much rarer that every known copy is, so
to speak, the cynosure of all neighbouring eyes. One ought further to
distinguish books which have become rare because, in bibliographical
phrase, vecherchés, and those which, being naturally few in number,
or, from their nature, calculated only to survive in a few copies,
have become sought after for that reason. It is obvious that the
former will include all rare, old, or early printed works which present
intrinsic attractions to the intelligence or antiquarian interest of
book-lovers, and the latter such books as are valued chiefly as a
source of curious vanity to the happy possessor, and of vexation of
spirit to his rivals.

Some books are, it would be simpler to say, “born rare, some
achieve rarity” by their merits or demerits, ‘and some ”’—of which
more anon—“ have rarity thrust upon them.”

Andreini’s Adamo, 4to, 1613, would perhaps never have become
even a moderately rare book, but for its “ex post facto” connection
with Milton’s Paradise Lost. Similarly the work of “Erycius
Puteanus” (ze. Henry Du Puy 1574-1646), entitled Comus sive
Phagesiposia Cimmeria, Somnium, first published at Louvain in 1611
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. II

{and reprinted at Oxford, 1634), may, for all we know, have been
rarified by students anxiously verifying the numerous passages,
borrowed thence by the English poet.

The texts of other works—none obtrusively common—infected by
the same interest, such e.g. as Taubmann’s Bellum Angelicum, 1607,
and Valmarana’s Paradisus, 1627, will be found in Lauder’s Delectus
auctorum sacrorum Miltono facem prealucentium, or “Selection” if
we may so translate it, ‘“of Sacred Authors who could hold a candle
to Milton,” 8vo, Londini, 1753, itself an out-of-the-way volume of
considerable interest, even if it fails to prove, in the words of the
fanatical author, that—

“Had Milton not plow’d with his Neighbour’s fair Heifer,
Fam’d Paradise Lost had not been worth a Cypher ” (!)

Similarly the “Tesoretto” of Brunetto Latini,! in itself merely a
singular piece of doggerel, derives a shade of importance from the
details (of scenery, &c.) which it certainly seems to have suggested
to Dante, who during his exile attended Latini’s lectures at Paris.
The process is of course as often reversed. Had the “Divine
Comedy” been a perfectly worthless production, it might have been
treasured because it preserved a few phrases of some rare or perished
original. Just as—to illustrate the. case of a precedent interest—a
certain folio Psalter of 1516 is highly priced on account of the long
account of Columbus which is employed to illustrate a particular
Psalm. This is the case with numerous works on miscellaneous topics
published about the date of such episodes as the discovery of the
New World. And, in general, details of a day long gone by have
often served to preserve trivial or worthless works enshrining them,
which would otherwise have long since been as extinct as the Dodo.
It would be idle to add that there are many old and good
books which well deserve to be vecherchés and in consequence rare,

1 First printed with certain other medizeval poems, 1642 (a collection, re-
printed in 1750). The ‘‘ Tesoretto” appeared by itself in 1824. 8vo, Milano.
12 .THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

‘but are not, perhaps through some accidental ignorance on the part
-of booksellers, possibly because no ingenious critic of established
reputation ever provided that worthy fraternity with one of those
concise testimonials which we find reprinted in small type in
‘catalogue after catalogue, year after year. Do not these do some-
thing to rescue a volume from dirt-commonness? or does no one
purchase Hooft’s History of the Netherlands because an eminent
judge once observed that its perusal would repay anybody the
trouble of learning Dutch?

Volumes of, so to speak, a native rarity, are those printed in
relatively remote places, in small quantities (either owing to the
‘expense of production or peculiarity of the subject, or merely for the
sake of the consequent rarity), or at private presses.

The collector who values books according to the locality of their
origin will do well to have at his fingers’ ends the various dates at
which printing was introduced into the different capitals and coun-
tries of the world, the degrees by which Italy, France, the Nether-
lands, Spain, and England fall behind Germany, and even the
pettier distinctions between Oxford and St. Albans, and London and
Westminster. Oxford, Mr. Gordon Duff tells us in his recent mono-
graph on the subject of Early Printing, produced so far as is known,
only two volumes in the fifteenth century, while St. Alban’s boasts
at least eight! and poor Cambridge lags a dozen years behind
Edinburgh and York.

More distant countries, the East, America, come of course later
still; and for all these the standard of rarity on account of place and
date has to be proportionately shifted. No one, not entirely ignorant
of history or devoid of the commonest human curiosity, would pass
by a book printed in Mexico, or at Constantinople, early in the
sixteenth, or in the Engadine valley, or the Scilly Isles, let us say
even in the eighteenth, century. Specimens of English printing of
the earlier time,—the excellent work of Wolf, Tottel, Newberie, Henry
Binnemann, and others,—are common enough, though by no means
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 13:

devoid of interest and value. A Scotch production of similar date
(not a foreign tract, bearing the fictitious stamp of “ Edimburgi”)
will be far more precious, and it is a singular fact, of which a
recently published catalogue of ‘‘ Cambridge Books” supplies no.
explanation, that there does not appear to be extant a single volume:
printed at that University town (whose first specimens, perhaps.
Hlegally produced, date from 1521) between 1522, and 1584, when
the University itself began to print.

The products of private presses though occasionally exhibiting an
excellence (more often a magnificence) unattainable by the merely
commercial printer, as a rule appeal chiefly to curiosity.

Appended to Lord Hardwicke’s Walpoliana is a list (‘copied in
Mr. Walpole’s presence”) of the books printed at Strawberry Hill..
They do not exceed thirty works, averaging about three or four:
hundred copies apiece, though Gray’s odes reached eleven hundred.

The fashion of producing certain books in small quantities, as
Bodoni of Parma printed A/arriage Odes for aristocratic families of
178-, and as modern publishers produce sumptuous “ éditions de
luxe” upon that “large paper” which has become the handmaid of”
minor poetic art, is a concession to the pursepride of the despotic
collector, who in these days must (it is hardly necessary to
observe) be as rich as Croesus. First and foremost among
works which, though produced in plenty, have been reduced to
rarity by recent demand, come those celebrated first editions of
modern romances which have of late years formed the chief big
game of London booksellers. The title-page of an English book,
the impression of a date, the width of a margin, are matters:
intelligible to the least learned among the trade. There is there-
fore here a free competition, the results whereof throw a startling
light upon the amount of money in the hands of persons who
seem hardly to know how to dispose of it; though it must not be
forgotten that the personage typified as “ the Chicago Pork-butcher,”’
has of late years been the mainstay of the West End bibliopole.
14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

The following prices, however, culled from catalogues of the last
few years, surely deserve to be placed on record; and let it be
remembered that none of these books are printed on vellum, that
‘‘original cloth” does not refer to cloth of gold, and that bank-
notes will rarely be found among the “uncut” fly-leaves. Zhe
Ingoldsby Legends, three vols., £30; jane Eyre, three vols.,
A15 155.; Sketches by Boz, three vols. (one with the two extra plates,
49 105.), 438 175. 6d.; Thackeray’s Second Funeral of Napoleon
(with etching by the author), #52 tos. This last item might
alarm a timid buyer, but another work of Michael Angelo Titmarsh
is quoted at the more moderate figure of £18 18s. Mr. Surtees’
well-known sporting romances, with, it must be noted, illustra-
tions of peculiar excellence, average from eight to twelve guineas ;
a very good copy of Handley Cross is quoted at fifteen. Master
Humphrey's Clock (in wrappers) may, or not long ago might, have
been bought for twelve guineas; Walpole’s AZysterious Mother for
nine; Mr. Swinburne’s Queen Mother for fifteen ; and, to conclude,
Byron’s Poems on Various Occasions (in a perfectly phenomenal
“state ” purged, as it were, of all the grossness of earthly matter) for
460. As to condition, it may be noted that there are divers
volumes attended from birth with some serious defect, the absence
of which gives sometimes a high value to specimens so distinguished.
Thus acopy- of the Gesta Dei per Francos, fol. 1611 (guels gestes de
Dieu, slily observes a French historian, gue ces actes de barbares /) the
pages of which were not the colour of strong tea, would, so facto
attract any collector’s attention. A similar hue pervades our
Anastasius de Vitis Pontificum, Moguntiz 1602, involving in a conge-
nial darkness like that of London fog, the Annals of the early Pontiffs
“from St. Peter to St. Nicholas the First.” Something it seems went
wrong with German (and Swiss) paper about the date of these vol-
umes. [If all the cheap literature and journalism of our own day, now
encumbering the British Museum, should in another two centuries
share a like fate, posterity need not experience either surprise or regret.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 15

But to return to modern works, which are seldom “browned
throughout ” as yet, though sometimes “‘foxed”’—there are persons
who would grudge the above prices even for edges adsolument non
rognés, unturned by the binder’s plough, and protected by the finest
handiwork of Bedford or Zaehnsdorf—who would in fact decline to
give £60 for Lord Byron himself in the flesh and all his works.
But such persons are not book-collectors in the true and exclusive
sense of the term. On the other hand it must be admitted that
these latter gentlemen undoubtedly do get hold of the “best
editions ” of such works as are above enumerated, although the price
paid for them may cause the hair of the impecunious to stand on
end. George Eliot observes of one of her famous characters that, ‘“He
was not above the vulgarity of thinking that nothing but the best
[furniture] would do for him.” Perhaps it is a vulgarity to crave the
best editions. ‘Every one,” whispers the acutely democratic con-
science, ‘cannot have them.” But some one mus¢, and there they
are; and who shall say the best edition is not pleasant to read, at
least if of a work in any form worth reading, which is of course
another question? .A volume (which few booksellers have seen) of
suppressed juvenile effusions, entitled Poems by J. R., changes hands
(so we have been informed by an expert) at some £40to £50; and
_generally speaking, works deemed worthless by those who should
know most about them, are toiled after, as few men toil after virtue,
by the ravening book-hunter, whose chief joy is to add “rarity to
rarity” that he may be “alone in the world.” One need hardly
refer under this head to the “ Poems by two Brothers, none of which
have been reprinted ” (1827), interest in which has to all appearance
reached its financial apogee since the lamented death of the last Poet
Laureate. It is astonishing, by the way, what large sections of the
public, who seem to have neglected an author’s works while he was
alive, have their curiosity suddenly awakened, as many publishers
could testify, by the news of his decease; as though this un-
avoidable concession to the fate of all mankind were the first
16 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

evidence he had displayed of genius or originality. But this is a
digression.

Whatever the reason, there seems hardly any limit assignable to
the price which a first edition, in the finest state, or indeed a “tall”
or spotless copy of a moderately out of the way work 7z a@ superb
binding,’ may not fetch, even in the auction room, to say nothing of
unrecorded investments by eccentric private purchasers.

Artistic beauty, of any kind, is inevitably at a premium.
Comparatively few modern productions, even when printed by
hand upon hand-made paper (excepting those perhaps of the
Kelmscott press, which, however, will scarcely regenerate popular
taste until they are obtainable at more “democratic” prices) can

1 In his exceeding regard for ‘‘ outsides,” the modern collector doth but revert
to medizeval fashion. In the fifteenth century, for example, as we learn from the
Catalogue of the Orleans Library in the Chateau of Blois (A.D. 1427), the
binding of a book and its ornamentation were what seemed most worth describing,
(and, indeed, with more reason than exists nowadays) while the contents are some-
times so cursorily mentioned as merely to arouse an unquenchable curiosity. Most
of the Orleans books were, and for that matter still are, ‘bound in stamped
leather” red or green, or in figured or embroidered silk, and many are adorned
with miniatures (/2s¢orzes) and illuminations. Also their age and style of writing
(‘* letter of form” or ‘‘ running hand,”) are carefully noted. One of the most
remarkable—videlicet the Abbé Bonnet’s defence of Valentine (Visconti),
Duchess of Orleans against the charge of having caused the madness of Charles VI.
—is described as ‘‘bound in red leather, written in French, 2” rhyme” (it was
called the Apparition of Jean de Meung and still exists in the Bibliothéque
Nationale), ‘‘ with miniatures ha/f finished (histordé d mz) quite new, with two clasps
—apparently (this in a later hand) of silver-gilt—with the inscription Ave Maria.”
No. 12 is a real rarity—nothing less than the lost poem of Froissart! Le Dit
Royal (black velvet, with miniatures, quite new), and No. 80, the last item,a
(duplicate) Golden Legend, illuminated and bound in red stamped leather, is
described as ‘‘re-covered by Simonette, lady’s maid to the younger Madame
dOrléans.” M. Le Roux de Lincy, the editor of this intensely interesting relic, not’
only identifies most of the books, but also discovers the names and charges of the
binders, and traces the history of many a MS. volume, compared with which the
rarest printed book seems but poor game. It is with difficulty that we tear
ourselves from the perusal of La Brbliothegue de Charles a’ Orléans. 8vo. Paris:
F. Didot. 1843.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 17

claim to be distinctly ornamental. In earlier days the commonest
manual or treatise was more picturesquely attractive than a volume
of Belles Lettres turned out by Clark of Dunedin, or Whittingham of
Chancery Lane. Sure many a youth of the fifteenth century must
have been attracted to the study of grammar by the mere title-page of

 

Title page of Coustantini Lascaris de octo orationis partibus. 8vo. Nic. de Sabio, Venice, 1539.

Nicolas de Sabio’s edition of the great work of Lascaris; the first edi-

tion of which (fol. 1476) was, by the way, the first Greek book printed.

If, however, we compare the above prices of modern classics and

romances with the early editions, for example, of Shakspeare (which

certainly have not their attractions in respect of typography), a

certain decent proportion will be found to be preserved, In the
Cc
18 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY:

remarkable sale of Mr. Birket Foster’s library, in June 1894, the
“first folio,” though with the usual imperfections, brought £255.
A perfect copy would, it is presumed, command four or five times
that figure. The second folio (1632)! fetched but £56, but the third
(most of the impressions of which were burnt in the Great Fire)

 

Di eS
0 "aoe Futedenys c,

Last leaf of Constantini Lascaris de octo ovationis partibus. 8vo. Nic. de Sabio. Venice,
1539, With autograph of Estienne Baluze (Scholar, Antiquary, and Colbertian .Librarian,

1630—1718).

reached £130. Single plays moreover—genuine and spurious—
fetched high prices.

The Midsummer Night's Dream, 1600 (large copy), £122.

1 Lord Orford’s copy (of the second folio) has just beaten all records by selling
June, 1895) for £540.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 19

The Merchant of Venice, 1600, £146 (the last copy previously
sold went for £99 15s.).

Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, £41.

King Lear, 1608, £100 (recently sold for £29 8s.). And the first
collected edition ot Shakspeare’s Poems, 1640, with portrait inlaid,
fetched £40.

At the same sale a first edition of the Compleat Angler, 8vo, 1653,
fetched £150.

But what is money? Mere dross. Is not John Major’s excellent
reprint of Walton and Cotton’s chef-d’euvre, which is to be found,
with portrait, plates, and woodcuts, in the library of all families of
any social standing, an infinitely preferable one to read? .. .

We have referred to the kind of rarity which, being the result of
what one may call an artificial, or at least an excessive demand, is
in modern days a somewhat fanciful and fluctuating source of value.
That which is produced by artificial diminution or destruction of the
supply, is on the whole of a more solid historical interest. We say arti-
ficial, for the accidental or blindly malevolent destructions by fire, in-
vading armies, and such like calamities, are of less intrinsic importance,
although their undesigned consequences were often more serious.

The librarian of King Osymandias, whose collection was formed,
we are told, ‘less than four centuries after the Flood,” ! might have
been able to tell us something of the literature already known to be
destroyed at that date. This first of libraries possibly possessed
some priceless relic which the Brunet of the day would have described
as ‘“‘Ouvrage assez ancien; Exemplaire portant l’autographe de
Japhet ; Quelgues feuilles mouilltes par le Déluge.” But the earliest
of historic destructions is the plunder of the Pisistratian collection
by Xerxes, of which Seleucus probably returned only the duplicates.

1 See the entertaining preface of Fr. Fournier’s invaluable Dictionnaire portatif
de Bibliographie, 2nd ed., Paris, 1809, containing 23,000 articles and catalogues
of Aldine, Elzevir, Didot, and other editions. After many years’ use (of the late
William Bury’s copy) I can testify to the generally reliable character of this

work, which deserves to be better known.
C3
20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

The burning of one half of the Alexandrian library by the soldiers
of Julius Cesar, and of the other half, some seven hundred years
later, by the Khalif Omar, and of Domitian’s library in the Capitol (in
the time of Commodus) ; the ravages of Goths, and of the French,
Spanish, and German invaders of Italy, with scores of other.medizval
calamities, down to the destruction by fire of some 8,000 valuable
Arabic MSS. in the Escurial Library at Madrid in 1671, and that
of the monastery of St. Germain des Prés (containing priceless
private collections of books, MSS. and gapyri) in 1794—the Biblio-
théque Nationale was barely rescued from the Communist incen-
diaries in 1871—all these accidents and crimes have swelled the tale
of valuable books which are no more, or exist only in such quantity
as to be practically zztfrouvable. Yet again there is a destruction
which means but excessive popularity. Bunyan, Walton, the “ Pastis-
sier Francois” (exhibited in the Long Gallery at the British Museum
and one of the rarest of Elzevirs, the Orford copy of which has just
sold for £540), and the famous Contes de ma mére l’oye, are found
“worn to rags” (as a kindly reviewer in the Dazly News reminds me)
“by anglers, devout women, cooks, and children.” A seventeenth
century edition of Bodenham’s Polteuphuia (first published 1598, and
frequently reprinted at the instance of N. L(ing) and others), which I
purchased the other day, is thumbed almost into illegibility—a strik-
ing evidence of the dearth of humour when such a mere endless
collection of truisms and platitudes could pass muster as Wii's
Commonwealth / But confining our attention to the deliberate sup-
pression or destruction of particular volumes, the presumption is
in such cases perhaps rather in favour of the persecuted work pos-
sessing some human interest, creditable or the reverse.

It is far from being always so; here again bibliomania is ram-
pant, perhaps to a less degree than formerly; for one must not
hastily assume that high-priced catalogues or auction-duels ter-
minating in rounds of applause are things belonging only to the
nineteenth century. We have August Beyer writing, in the preface
‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 21

to his bibliographical A¢emorie (Dresden, 1734), that he had long
noticed the ‘astonishing’ prices. (cnexpectata pretia)” commonly
assigned to certain little known booklets. “Greater still was my
surprise to see English, Dutch, French, and German buyers (he
puts our countrymen first) engaged in a sort of tacit mutual con-
spiracy to secure them, and. unwearied in their expenditure for
this object, though I was unable to conjecture any motive, except
the mere vanity of ostentation, why, for example, educated men,
with some taste for real learning and only distinguished for their
literary studies, should prefer rare books to good ones.” Works
of well-known merit, he goes on to say, by learned and capable
authors, very seldom vanish at once from the public view, unless
indeed (and the exception brings us to our next subdivision of the
subject) they chance to be unsuited to the genius of the age, their
author having been so ill-advised as, in historic phrase, to enter the
world “ before his time.” ‘ :
Without speculating where this hypothetical date could have been
fixed in the case, for example, of such:a person as Huss or Galileo,
one may admit that the majority of works summarily suppressed
appear rather to have deserved their. fate. It is in:the limited
class of cases where reactionary authority, bigotry, or high-placed
corruption has with more or less success endeavoured to ‘stamp
out some publication indicating the high-water mark of the free
thought of the age that rarity becomes of most significance to
the student. ; /
With the mass of works suppressed as contra bonos mores we need
not then here concern ourselves, though they will always attract the
attention of certain curio-mongers ; but it must be borne in mind that
the distinction is not always easy to: draw, indecency and an out,
rageous disregard of orthodox convenances being so often, as notably
in the case of Rabelais (whom no one succeeded in suppressing);
and in certain of the Protestant Reformers, such as Beza (not to
mention Luther himself), one effective edge, so to speak, of the
22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

newly-forged weapon of free thought. Few writers have contributed
more to this class of rarity than the celebrated Pietro Aretino, com-
monly known as “the Scourge of Princes,” though it would rather
appear from Mazzuchelli’s interesting life of this indefatigable libeller,
that his self-interest was at least equal to his candour. Half a dozen
editions of the comedies and rhymes of Messer Partenio Ettro run
up the whole gamut in Gamba from assaz raro to rarissimo, and are
in fact almost as difficult to procure as the censor of morals would
desire. Perionius, an eminent Benedictine, addressed a singular
‘petition to the princes of Europe in 1551 (a rare piece) begging the
authorities ‘To remove so horrible a monster from among them
(ut tam horribile monstrum de medio tollatis),” a proposal which could
hardly be made with regard even to the most unpopular of satirists in
ourown day. The “ monster,” however, remained, alternately insult-
ing Charles V. and Francis I., and died at a mature age leaving six
volumes of correspondence. With Nicolo Franco (1505-1569), the
rival both in obscenity and scurrility of Aretino (whom he spent half
a lifetime in abusing), but a writer of undoubted ability, the case
was different. Pope Pius V. by way of effective reply to certain
other libels directed against a former Head of the Church, Jo fece pub-
licamente appiccare. His Rime contra Pietro Aretino (8vo, 1548) are
nearly as rare as the Elzevir edition of the latter’s Ragionament?.
The dialogue of the Carte Parlanti, even in an expurgated form,
was retained in the ecclesiastical black-book in the seventeenth cen-
tury. For ourselves, we are not perhaps sufficiently grateful to the
sedulous amateur who, in Edward Cheney’s copy of the Venice edi-
tion of 1650, has restored all the most objectionable passages, in
M.S. Improper works, suppressed with more or less rigour, may of
course be found at any date ; and a few examples suffice, since from
Petronius Arbiter to M. Claude Prosper Crébillon, the supposed
author of the fictitious Pompadour Letters (Londres, 1774), this class
of literature admits no very rich variety.

It is necessary to distinguish, alas! as we approach the darker
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 23

ages between the cause of religion and that of morals. Probably
from its very nature, persecution, dealing with minute points of
doctrine, has exhibited throughout history mote, single-minded en-
thusiasm than any divergence of opinion (which has. perhaps seldom
been very great) upon merely moral questions. ty,

One of the rarest books in existence is, ‘according to general
opinion, the tract of Servetus (Dr. Michel Révés, that is, who, at the

ef
LQ \

 
      

Venetijs apud Antontum Gardane. se
M D XXXXIT,

From ‘ Le pistole vulgari di M. Nicolo Franco.” 8vo, Venice. 1542.

 

instigation of his former friend Calvin, was burnt alive at Geneva in
1558), entitled Christianismi Restitutio (8vo, 1553), of which only
one copy is known to exist, viz.that sold at the Lavallitre sale for
something over £150; and next might came the same author’s
three tracts on the, ‘Trinity (printed in italics, 1 532) prix arbitraire.
A more cofimon topic of bibliographical gossip is the Treatise of
24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

the Three Impostors (Liber de Tribus Impostoribus), of which the
first chapter i is headed “De Deo”; a work once attributed without
the slightest foundation to Servenis but which, according to Four-
nier, is erroneously dated 1598, and belongs, as indeed is obvious
from the allusions to Descartes and to the philosophy of the seven-
teenth century, to a hundred years later. Endless research has
been expended on the history of this publication, or another of the’
same name now lost, but said to have been in existence early in the
sixteenth century. For this the curious reader may be referred to
the notes of La Monnoye and others in the French version (a com-
mon book of the last century), to Burton’s Anatomy of Melan-
choly (that wondrous collection of “sweepings from the Bodleian ”),
where the leading idea of the work is ascribed to the Emperor
Frederick II. who died in 1250; the authority given for this statement
being a curious passage in Matthew Paris which we find on p. 685
of our folio edition of 1571. Sir Thomas Browne, in the first part
of his Religio Medici, also speaks of the work, or rather of a work
of this name (without explicitly saying that he has seen it) as a “ mis-
creant piece,” but of the author as one who was “not a positive
atheist.” Browne’s anonymous annotator (and this brings us to
another illustration of our subject) remarks that the piece was “by
Ochino.”

And so many people once thought, and doubtless with some reason.
For the works of Bernardino Ochino “ of Siena,” who passed through
several religious phases and finally died a Socinian in 1564, fill
several pages in bibliography, and are almost all “‘very rare”; the
rarest perhaps being, after certain sermons printed in 1 ov A
Dialogue of Purgatory (8vo, 1556), and an attack on the errors of
the *Sinagoga del Papa” (Geneva, 1554), a “ Dialogue of the unjust
and usurped primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and the just. abolish-
ing theteof” (London, 1549). It is hardly necessary ‘to say that
these were all suppressed with conscientious care.!_ Ochino, like so

1 I have-beforé me the original edition of his Catechismo overo Institutione
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 25

many others, had something to say on the then popular subject of
Antichrist. The work of Huss bearing this title (never printed till
the sixteenth century, a 4to volume of Opuscula with no date) was
the immediate cause of his destruction. It was not always found
possible to suppress the obnoxious author ; but an inevitable epithet
in the description of the lucubrations of early Protestantism, is the
phrase fort rare, supprimé par la cour de Rome. Another work,
which was the occasion of about as much literary fuss as the Three
Impostors, is the Cymbalum Mundi (8vo, Paris, 1537), of which
only two or three copies are said to be known. Every kind of
shocking impiety was long attributed to the author, till at last it
occurred to one eminent bibliographer of the last century to read the
book, which he accordingly did, and found it of quite depressing
propriety. A more important example of a very rare book which,
though its author suffered years of martyrdom for his advanced
opinions, was not suppressed, is the Sve/ta a’alcune poesie filosofiche di
Settimontano Sguilla (s.\. printed in Germany) ze//’ anno 1622.
This title conceals no less important a work (to the student of
History in Literature) than the sonnets of Campanella (1568-1629),
the famous author of the De Monarchia Hispania (24mo, Elzevir,
1641), which were published with .a valuable preface by his friend
and contemporary Adami. They were reprinted at Zurich in 1834,
and have been translated ‘igs those of Buonarroti) by the late Mr.
J. A. Symonds. :

The most select catalogue ¢ of books “‘ordered to be burnt by the
common hangman ” would exhaust our space, even if the subject had

Christiana, a pious and sensible work addressed ‘‘alla chiesa Locarnese che
hora i in Zuricco ”—8vo, in Basilea, 1 561; and the Dialogus de Purgatorio—which
is an ardent, and more entertaining polemic—Tiguri, apud Gesneros, 1555. These
works have'no high market value at the present day, though by no means worth-
less in the hands of a theological bookseller. The ‘‘Cymbalum” is easily
accessible in Prosper. Marchand’s’ edition, Amsterdam (Paris), 1732. I could
find nothing in it the least worthy of eee except perhaps one mild reflection
on the Catholic religion.
26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

not been recently handled by Mr. J. A. Farrer in a curious little
work wherein he advocates the revival of the custom, we dare not
say upon insufficient grounds. But nowadays we do not achieve any
destruction more discriminative than an occasional conflagration in
Paternoster Row.

During all the interesting period of the revival of learning and
thought, the discrimination was all in one direction, until ecclesias-
tical damnation came to confer upon the volumes it honoured a sort
of hall-mark of excellence, or at least of candour and originality.

Wiclif's Dialogues (a handsome 4to volume of 1525 with a fine
wood-cut title-page), and especially the fourth book reflecting on the
Roman Sacraments and those unfortunate donations, were rigorously
suppressed by Rome. All Wiclif’s works were ordered to be burned
by Archbishop Arundel. Francis I., the orthodox ally of the Grand
Turk, once went so far as to prohibit printing, for fear of Protestant
publications, but apparently without success. To the fate of Huss
and Servetus we have already referred. In such a context one could
not omit all mention of the unfortunate Giordano Bruno of Nola, a
philosopher who, having been much persecuted in his own day, has
perhaps been unduly praised in our own. His Spaccio della Bestia
trionfante, etc. 12mo, Paris, 1544 (London, 1584), dedicated to Sir
Philip Sidney, is one of those volumes occasionally described as
“rarity itself.” “I would not have it thought,” writes Bruno, ‘“ that
I aimed either directly or incidentally at opposing the truth or at
attacking what is good, useful, natural, and consequently divine” ;
and he then proceeds to inveigh against various current forms of
superstition. But authority could not accept this view of the case,
and the usual process of rarification was applied to the Bestia, a
copy of which was sold for £28 at a London auction in 1711 and
at a later date for 450.1 We dare say few readers have seen the

1 See an interesting review of this book in the Sgectator, No. 389, (where it is
characterized as ‘‘a short fable with no pretence to reason or argument and a very
small share of wit ”) and the editor’s note.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 27

English version, Zhe Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, of which
a few copies were printed in 1713. The original work, together
with a vast number of others, some of which not even bibliographers
have seen, was rigidly suppressed ; the author was burned in effigy,
and afterwards, as is well known, zx propria persona (A.D. 1600) at
Rome.

The case of one Pallavicino, not the Popish historian of the
‘Council of Trent, but the author of the Dévortio Celeste (the
divorce, that is, of Christ from the Romish Church) and other
‘satirical works, a volume in 12mo dated Villafranca, 1643, which for
some reason is quite common in London at the present day (though
Hallam says he had never seen it), is a parallel to that of Franco
above mentioned. Ferrante Pallavicino thought he had got off scot-
free, but was treacherously entrapped and beheaded by Pope Urban
VIII., while his book was, we may presume, selling like wildfire in
the Protestant market.1

Satirists had indeed to be very careful (see Le Danger de la Satire,
ou la vie de Nicolo Franco, a nice little book printed at Paris in
1778) ; and not only satirists but booksellers. As to the general
‘sense of oppression under which they laboured, we can hardly do
better than cite a precious passage from the letters of Paolo Manuzio,
not those formal and laboured Le¢tere Volgari which he issued from
the Aldine press in 1556 and 1560, and which enjoyed so much
popularity among the stylists of the Renaissance, but the real homely
business and domestic communications first published by Renouard
with the sumptuous excellence that marks his productions, in 8vo.
papier vergé, Paris, 1834. Under date Rome, February 28, 1570,
the worried but ever industrious and hopeful Manuzio writes to his
son, As to your books (guanto a tuot Libri, p. 181) they are ina
safe place, in cases carefully secured, as you left them.” The
anxious collector had been previously assured of this in a
letter of May of the preceding year : ‘I don’t know if there is any-

ly. Naudeana & Patiniana, 2nd ed. 1703, p. 323.
28 ‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

thing forbidden or suspect among them. I have no wish to touch or
look at them, lest I should have happen to me what happened to an
employé of mine, who has had five months in prison and risk of the
rope, though without his fault, only for being mentioned by one who
professed: to have read to him, here in the house, some pieces of
Franco’s, a writer whose mere name (he was hanged, by the way,
only a few months before the date of this letter) is enough to
send to prison any one who has so much as conversed with him—
not to say read any of his works.” And this reflection the respected
and privileged Manuzio thought too audacious even for a private
letter, without a saving clause, and so he adds: ‘“‘The Tribune is
most severe, but most pious (vigorosissimo ma santissimo), and we
must praise its every act for the benefit of this Holy Throne so much
attacked by the perverse reasoning of heretics.”

Yet more praiseworthy seems the connoisseur who during these
troublous times preserved for us in /vogo sicuro and casse ben legate or
perchance (a practice rightly condemned by Mr. Gladstone) at the back
of shelves of other volumes, as school-boys conceal illicit romances,
the very things we are now most anxious to read. The tyranny
of lay authority was perhaps not equal to the ecclesiastic, or was less
often provoked ; but it had to be reckoned with. Candid historians,
such as the prudent and impartial Guicciardini, needed often to deny
themselves the glory of publication in their own lifetime for fear the
powers that be should show too keen an interest in the production,
and in fact “take up” the whole issue with such ardour as modern
booksellers do the last work of the popular author of the hour. It
was almost more exasperating when they took to editing or “ Bowd-
lerising” the work. Interest, rarity, commercial value, may be found
dancing around these apparently trifling bibliographic details.
Bruto’s History of Florence (4to, 1562) is an excellent specimen of
the Giunta press. The book was so far successful that the Grand
Duke ordered all the copies there were, sold or unsold. “Es ist
iiberaus rar” a German commentator tells us; but ‘“ extraordinarily
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 29

rare” or not, the history exists, lies before us in fact, as we write,
It is only brought up to the year 1492 (the death of Lorenzo the
magnificent) and unfinished. The preface is such a scathing review
of certain historians (Giovio in particular) who had reflected upon

Coa vad nuoua tauola copiofiffima del medefimo, pew
maggior commoditade'Lettori.

 

IN PARMA.
Appreffo Seth Vitor & $ 7 B

From title page of Francesco Guicciardini, gli ultimi quattro libri, ed. Papirio Picedi (not a
common edition), ap. Seth Viotto. Parma, 4to. 1572. These last four books were first
published in 1564.

Florence, that it was reprinted under the title of a “ defence of the

Florentines” (in Italian), 4to, 1566. On the other hand the text of

Platina’s celebrated Lives of the Popes was seriously corrupted in the
3 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

editions of the sixteenth century. The ingenuity with which the
passage in the life of Pope Cletus, “‘uxorem habuit in Bithynia”
was altered in some versions into ‘‘uxorem zoz habuit in Bithynia,”
is a solitary and startling anticipation of nineteenth century
humour. In our own copy, formerly the property of M. Estienne
Baluze, and bearing his bold autograph,! the damaging expression is
omitted altogether. And there were other alterations, more per-
nicious though less amusing.

Textual corruption, in fact, in ages of unlimited monarchy, stalks.
abroad, becoming almost a rule, not an exception. Holinshed’s
Chronicle, we all know, was altered to please Elizabeth : and Camden,
a better annalist than antiquary, hit on the device, as Disraeli recites,
of handing over to De Thou the passages which he dared not entrust
to an English printer.2- There is a more curious modern example in
the case of Huet’s memoirs of his own time (Commentarius de rebus

‘ad eum pertinentibus. Amsterdam, 8vo, 1718: “‘ouvrage curieux”),
certain passages of which (see p. 36) are, apparently on theological
grounds, omitted in the French translation of 1853 !

It is in these matters that the bibliographer is most needed ; in his
columns are collected the test-passages, nay, the very words and
printers’ errors by which the genuine work is to be discerned from
the counterfeit, the historical justice from the imperial or ecclesi-
astical thief. A score of important original records suffer from this
malady, quite apart from the inaccuracy intrinsic to the genesis of so
many early texts, and the casual buyer discovers in time, through the
pain which A®schylus tells us is divinely associated with learning,
that the commonest are the worst affected.

In a treatise which is nothing if not philosophical we have not
thought worthy of notice such rarity or singularity as results either

1 See p. 18 ante. He signs his surname Balzze on the Platina.

2 This fact will be found in the publishers preface to the Azzals (I quote the
8vo ed. Elzevir, 1625), and not in the author’s, which, however, gives some
interesting details on the relations of the two historians.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 31

from the ignorance or stupidity of a printer or from some fancy or
fad of a former possessor. Books have been treated in strange ways.
The great Charles Darwin, when encumbered by the weight of a
bulky volume, thought the shortest way of getting through the same
was to cut it in two.

Anatomically he was of course right, nor, in the case of a modern
Science-book (probably in the odious garb of “ Publisher’s cloth ”)
need the destruction be regretted. But the tremendous actuality of
such a pursuit of wisdom would send many a dilettante ‘“ bookman”
into wild hysterics.

An eminent Shakespearean scholar, now deceased, is famed for
having ruthlessly torn out of volumes in his possession all the matter
which he considered of insufficient interest. Here again enthusiastic
and indefatigable fatuity will be found pressing hard upon the tracks.
of eccentric genius. There are, or were recently at large persons
bearing all the outward semblance of sane humanity who purchased
these half-plucked volumes at comparatively high prices. To such
truly was the “half more than the whole.” It is not so usually, or
we should not hear of so much happiness depending on a millimétre
more or less of seventeenth century paper, with nothing on it.
Etymologically, of course, a ‘‘tome” is that which has been cut.
A collector, however, is the slave of an ‘‘ atomic theory” which has.
nevertheless little to do with science or learning of any kind, and
does not tend to the preservation of books, which should always have
their top edges cut and gilt, and their sides shaved smooth (at least
if any one is going to turn over the leaves) as soon as possible.

To return to Bibliography proper (which is not occupied with
“ curiosities”), not only should the systematic bookbuyer read his

1 “© A taste for books,” says the great Gibbon—a dictum naturally popular with
the trade—‘*‘ has been the pleasure and glory of my life.”

To humbler collectors the pleasure is more obvious than the glory.

Perhaps this latter may be thought to be dawning when an individual whom you

do not know writes from a distant locality requesting an exchange of Bookplates !
Should these lines meet the eye of the “ Ex-Librarian” in question (‘“‘ Ex-Librist ”
32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

tomes in a manner respectful to their matter, but he should study those
‘“‘externals” which are really material, to wit styles, introductions,
dedications, nay, even typography and “ get-up,” in order to facilitate
the rapid discernment of a ‘‘book” from a mere “volume,” even in
the best French morocco—to distinguish not only the air and “je ne
sais quoi” of colouring and appearance that sometimes give a sort of

is a term one would not apply even to a political opponent), let him know that
while their author does not as yet either possess a bookplate himself or require
that of any one else, he has discovered (?) and preserved a really interesting
specimen in that of the Marquis of Macciucca (/éétévateur, 1699-1785), comprising
besides a conventional crest and monogram, fifteen printed rules expounding the
principles on which the books in his lordship’s library were lent out.

This document, of which a description was printed in the Atheneum not long
ago, I first found in a copy of the Lettres Fanatigues, 8vo, 1739 (now in the
British Museum), and again in Alciati’s Zractatus contra vitam monasticam, &c.,
4to, 1740. It seems to comprise the whole duty of a book-borrower, and can
hardly be a common specimen. The original, of which the text is here appended,
was exhibited in 1894 by the ‘‘ Ex-Libris ” Society.

Leges, Volumina ex Bibliotheca nostra commodato accepta, lecturis, secundum
auspicia lata Lictor Lege agito in Legirupionem. Mas vel Foemina fuas, hac tibi
lege, Codicis istius usum non interdicimus.

I. Hunc ne Mancipium ducito. Liber est: ne igitur notis compungito.

II. Ne czesim punctimve ferito : ostis non est.

III. Lineolis, intus, forisve, ducendis abstineto.

IV. Folium ne subigito, ne complicato, neve in rugas cogito.

V. Ad oram conscribillare caveto.

VI. Atramentum ultra primum exesto: mori mavult quam fcedari.

VII. Puree tantum papyri Philuram interserito.

VIII. Alteri clanculum palamve ne commodato.

IX. Murem, tineam, blattam, muscam, furunculum absterreto.

X. Ab aqua, oleo, igne, situ, illuvie arceto.

XI. Eodem utitor, non abutitor.

XII. Legere, et queevis excerpere, fas esto.

XIII. Perlectum, apud te perennare ne sinito.

XIV. Sartum tectumq., prout tollis, reddito.

XV. Qui faxis, vel ignotus amicorum albo adscribitor: qui secus, vel notus
eraditor. Has sibi, has aliis preescribit leges in re sua, ordinis Hyeresolimitani
Eques Franciscus Vargas Macciucca. Quoi placeas annue, quoi minus quid tibi
nostra tactio est? Facesse.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 33

“‘gamey” flavour to a genuine “find,” but the differences, so often
discovered too late, between volumes entitled indeed alike but
radically different in essential qualities.

The Commentaries of Sleidan, one of the most valuable
authorities on the time of Charles V., are to be consulted in the rare
first edition, folio 1555. In later issues he’ is gravely suspected of
having toned down certain trenchant reflections on the Catholics ;
while the anxiety he expresses in his preface to please all parties if it
could be done, is as obvious as that of any Broad Church theologian.
Bernardo Segni’s History of Florence from 1527 to 1555 (not
printed till 1723), and at least one other Italian history, have, in
complete copies, scandalous passages printed and inserted on a
separate slip. Similarly almost all copies of the Aldine edition of
the Poems of Lorenzo de’ Medici are found in a mutilated state, the
eight leaves of one whole “gathering” (O) having been reduced to
four, an alteration effected by Paolo Manuzio during the printing of
the work. This appears from the fact that the “‘ register ” was altered,
as the bibliographer Gamba first pointed out, to suit the omission.
It does not seem clear why Manuzio did this, since two of the poems
thus withdrawn from publication were of a religious nature. But
any one can understand why Trissino, during the impression of the
“original and only complete edition” of his great epic poem, with-
drew from some copies of the work (those which were intended for
circulation in high places, or all that there was time to alter after he
had realised the danger of their publication?) about thirty lines of
prophetic invective against the’Papacy and the Church. The wonder
is rather that they were ever printed. But very possibly many an
author who in such days enthusiastically committed to paper, in a
veiled or poetical form, an indictment of existing abuses, was struck
—as what authors are not often struck ?—by the difference in lucidity
and directness between manuscript and “ copy.”

Let the purchaser, then, of the //alia Liberata dai Gots (3 vols. 8vo,
Venice and Rome, 1547-8), undistracted by the curious Greek type

D

re

A,
34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

scattered about Trissino’s pages, look carefully at the 131st page of
the second volume.

Again the first edition of Burnet’s History of his own Time is very
common. A bookseller would not stoop to pick it up in the streets.
It appeared in a much garbled form ; so did that of Clarendon, and
numerous others. So, for different reasons, did most of the precious
correspondence of Madame de Sévigné, of which the Rouen edition of
1720 is extremely rare ;—and the dearth of MSS. has made their per-
fect reproduction at the present moment almost impossible. This cor-
ruption of the very springs of our knowledge of the past is a constant
and endless source of exasperation. Better to be burned out once
for all, to have to buy back the charred remains of your manuscript,
as the historian Paolo Giovio did from a tipsy Spanish soldier engaged
in the sack of Rome! (and at what we may assume to have been a
prix arbitraire), than to be coolly edited with scissors or blacking-
brush by a Roman Catholic divine, as Russian censors in our own
day treat the revolutionary Punch, or prepared for the intelligent
student of politics by some one-eyed and unlettered partisan. The
great De Thou—who, by the thoughtless emission of such expressions
as Rupisfulcaldius, involved his countrymen in the compilation of
dictionaries wherewith to translate his valuable history—is said to
have refused the request of James I. that he should alter therein the
text of a certain passage. Yet the Pattisson folio edition of 1604 is
counted rare for the containing of certains endroits which, in the
words of the poet, are not met with elsewhere. When Alexander
Gordon, in the eighteenth century, published his interesting History,
he could only quote the suppressed passages in Guicciardini’s fourth

1 Two officers—to speak quite correctly—found the MSS. in a box also con-
taining money. Those on paper were thrown away, but the parchments restored
for a price, to wit Holy Orders (!) conferred on the plunderer by the Pope at
the tearful request of the author. See Joviz Opera, fol. Bastlee. 1578, I. 151.
In the same passage we are told that the last six books of the first decade were
those destroyed, but that the author hopes to restore them from memory and
notes.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 35

book from such surreptitious publications as the little volume entitled
Thuanus restitutus, &c.(12m0, 1663), one of the numerous historical
opuscula printed in Germany and burnt in France. Nor was the
wotk correctly printed until 1820, the date of Rosini’s edition.

The memoirs of Sully (like, for that matter, the first edition of
Lambarde’s Xen?) contained reflections upon certain noble families.
Gui Patin, ina letter dated February 28, 1650 (ed. 1692, vol. i. p. 94),
speaks of a recent edition (Rouen, 1649?) considerably mutilated at
the request of ‘‘ M. le Prince.”

We do but glance here at a few of the casual elements in what
may be called the philosophy of rarity, which, indicating as they do
difficulty of acquisition and necessity of research, may recall to the
buyer of books, as books, how many snares and pitfalls beset those
who go forth to the chase unequipped with the requisite information.
It is only necessary to add that in these peaceful days of international
communication, where manuscripts subsist and have been reprinted,
old and early editions, however rare, tend to fall into discredit.
What has been done by French editors for such great classics as
Joinville, Froissart, and Saint-Simon, and by the late Dr. Luard and
other no less trustworthy scholars for Matthew Paris and an immense
number of our own early Chronicles, is well known. Nevertheless,
though an ‘old edition” of the Astoria Major may be bought
for very little, it must not be imagined that the magnificent black-
letter first editions of the great French Chroniclers published at the
close of the fifteenth century are not (even when far less correctly
printed than the above) both valuable and uncommon.

Early histories, it has already been observed, were sometimes found
better, at least safer, for a little keeping. But the interest attaching
to a book being a matter of so many and divers influences, it is
equally true that contemporary editions of records of important events
may be supposed to possess both rarity and interest. A letter from
Columbus announcing the so-called discovery of America (of which a
perfect copy was only recently discovered, dated 1493), Vespuccio’s

D2
36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

account of his explorations (1503-4), the Swmmarte and True Discourse
of Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian voyages, and the early editions
of Marco Polo, whose original (77ench) text was, as we learn from
Mr. Quaritch’s instructive catalogue, only published in 1824,—these
are the very models of rare and invaluable historical monuments.

It is a mere platitude to observe that the men of action who dis-
covered the New World were fortunate in being among the first who
found developed and ready to hand the greatest force ever known for
the celebration and recording of great deeds. Previous explorers,
conquerors, thinkers, historians, had had to wait, often at great risk.
From the invention of printing it became possible for
every human memorandum to be at once committed
to a form which in its multiplicity and durability was
practically indestructible. But the sixteenth century
was, like our own, an age of enthusiastic and on the
whole tasteful reproduction. Few more attractive
books have ever appeared than, to take examples at
haphazard, the Silvian edition of Gulielmus Neubri-
gensis (8vo, Antwerp, 1567); Wolf’s first edition of
Matthew Paris (fol. Lond. 1570); the “Various
Letters” of Cassiodorus (fol. Augsburg, 1533: “assez
; rare”); Morel’s beautiful rubricated Gregory of Tours
Device of Guil- (8vO: 1562); or, again, the valuable and excellently

Grzy Ml printed collection of Epigrammata and Poematia

(Paris: Duval and Gilles, 12mo, 1590: “rare ef

recherchée”) edited by Pierre Pithou. And the Monstrelet. of P.

Mettayer (3 vols. in 2, fol. 1595) is unquestionably one of the finest
large-type library editions that ever left the press.

In estimating the interest of such productions an allowance must
be made for a sentiment which is not perhaps devoid of historical
value. If it seems to a common child of Adam more natural to
read such writers as Gregory and Cassiodorus (unique sources of
medizval history) in what, though separated from them by some nine

 
.THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 37

and a half centuries, still strike us as “‘ old editions,” how transcend-
ent must be the interest attaching to a volume which, so far as chrono-
logy is concerned, might have been read by the author himself! Did
Savonarola by chance actually handle this “spotless copy’? of the
“Compendium,” as he called it, of his Revelations printed for him by
Buonaccorsi in Florence three years after the death of his arch
enemy and three years before his own?

Persons living in that age have clearly a special interest for all
students of history as recorded in the “ printed book.” How difficult
to shake off the impression that one somehow reads between the
lines of such an “original” more than can be conveyed to the
circulating-library student of our day by, let us say, the modern English
version, if there be one, cheaply printed in double columns !!

But, again, it must in justice be remembered that in ever so many
cases, which only special knowledge and experience enable us to discern,
the old book, in spite of its rarity, beauty, and antiquarian interest, is
not, after all, the thing itself, but only an inaccurate or fraudulent
perversion of a text printed, perhaps, last year “from the original
MSS.,” preserved—happily we have not often to inquire where? But
the reader who would shake off the ‘‘idols ” of the Book World need
but cross the threshold of a modern manuscript department or
“Record Office” and tremble! He may, indeed, bitterly console
himself with the reflection that many “originals” are hopelessly lost

1 Perhaps a better example of a rarity concerning ‘‘ Frate Hieronymo” would
be the unique (?) quarto volume containing the ‘‘ canzonad’ un piagnone pel brucia-
mento delle vanita nel Carnevale del 1498,” printed at the time, and reproduced
in a superb edition on hand-made paper—Firenze, 1864 (160 copies, of which
mine is No. 143)—together with the contemporary account of a ‘‘ burning of
vanities,” by Benivieni, the friend and supporter of the unfortunate Savonarola,
for a glimpse of whose half-mystic attitude see the Compendto delle Rivelationt
aforesaid (1495). There were two Carnivals, those of 1497 and 1498 (Florentine
style, 1496-7) at which Savonarola preached (véde Romola) the destruction o
“¢ vanities and abominations,” which, as carried out by bands of fanatical youths,
“* weepers,” or péagnonz in the singular manner here described, formed part of an
enthusiastic but ephemeral crusade against luxury.
38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

or preserved only in a translated or secondary form, which it is im-
possible for the most ardent research, in legal jargon, to “ go behind.”

‘Mais, pour suivre notre route” (as even Montaigne once ob-
serves), hardly a ray of the ‘“‘contemporary ” interest can be said to
touch the first editions of Greek and Roman Classics. When we
contemplate the magnificent folio Virgil (1468 or 9) which in 1780
was sold in an imperfect state for £164, and in 1889 (the Hopetoun
copy) for £590, we do not think of Virgil, but of Conrad Sweynheym
and Arnold Pannartz, the importers of printing into Italy, and of the
enthusiasm attending the revival of letters.

Far different, for example, is the “local colour,” historically speak-
ing, attached to a volume, bearing on its very back evidence of the
feeling of a dead and gone generation. Here, for example, is a small
8vo of 1763, lettered in bold type ‘‘ Poison for the Scotch.”

“What is its title?” would be a fair question to a candidate
for Honours in Bibliography. Several copies (a¢ Jeast, to be
perfectly accurate, my own and another) of the Worth Briton (this
edition, by the way, is “‘ unknown to Lowndes”) were so lettered.

There exist of course volumes combining every element of interest
connected with date, place, printing, authorship, “ proprietary ” bind:
ing, and autograph—as there be perfect eggs of the Great Auk. As
a rule, however, specimens of early’ printing are rather to be classed
as historical curiosities. The'‘‘six copies known” of the aforesaid
Virgil are, where such things should be, in public libraries. An old
book, which is also a contemporary monument, which marks an.
epoch in history or belongs in its genesis to that epoch, is the most
intrinsically valuable of books; and a keen perception of this:
(though deranged by odd and variable fancies) will be'found to
govern much of the forces of research now at work and with’ which
the book-buyer must needs do battle. With regard to-the pursuit
of the “first edition,” the case of a volume differing from another
(even to expert eyes) by no more than one figure on the title-page (a
defect which the bookseller of medizval morals may sometimes
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 39

remedy for himself) is not to be compared to that in which the first
edition bears in general character and typography the stamp of a long
past and widely different age. A genuine first edition is in its small
way a monument of history. In fact Allan Ramsay’s poems (pub-
lished in 1728) were even called in to prove an important point of
law, and settled a family dispute.!

The studious plutocrat will therefore dc not altogether foolishly to
buy the first edition of the first part of Don Quixote (4to, Madrid,
1605) for, let us say, £140, if it were only to fix an important date

  

FAS

 

Woodcut from Amadis de Gaul, trad. par Ant. Tyron, gto. Lyon, 1574.

in his mind. When he has read therein as far as the highly
unfavourable review of existing romances of chivalry contained in
the famous sixth chapter, he will be interested to learn that the
original edition of Amadis de Gaul (in folio black-letter, Saragossa,
1508) may be valued at a still higher figure, although the author is
believed to have died early in the fourteenth century. To explain
this (if the reader has not already been provided with sufficient
theories from which to choose) we may add that the copy is unique.

1 See Memoirs of Dr. Somerville (cited p. 152, post). Ramsay’s Elegy was
also accepted.as evidence of the death of the infant Lord Carnegie without issue.
40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

Until it was discovered in the present century at Ferrara, the best
and oldest of chivalric fictions (as the Curate and the Barber agreed
in calling it) was chiefly known in a charming illustrated edition,
complete in twenty-seven volumes, when you can get them, ranging
between 1570 and 1590. We confess to having long since deter-
mined to rest content with a single one, the fourteenth, translated by
Antoine Tyron, and dated 1574, the woodcuts of which are capital,
and crowded with incomparable dragons enough to stock all Mr.
Andrew Lang’s new and blue Fairy Books.

Bibliography, to be more than a vain curiosity, must of course be
studied as a material part of history. Many indeed are the books
whose appearance marks the accession of something far more import-
ant than king or queen, nay of that which is often apt to destroy
kings, queens, and existing conventions generally, to wit a new idea ;
of which we are thus provided with the most congenial memoria
technica. Not less significant than the first edition of Don Qutxote,
for example, is the publication of Galileo’s Wuntius Sidereus, his
Message from the Stars, in 1610; or of those Lettres écrites par Louts
de Montalte a un Provincial de ses Amis which make the year 1657
an epoch in the history of French literature.

The final ripening of scientific conclusions, the impatient outbursts
of long shackled humour and good sense, the explosions of oppressed
suffering, and the exultant happiness of peace and secured civilisa-
tion—all these leave their mark in the records of bibliography, and
are more important and more interesting than all the official Acts of
Sovereigns and States.

Yet of the latter. Herr. Vogt, whom we have almost forgotten,
makes a special class, as things not generally entrusted to ‘the
trade,” nor indeed concerning the general public who had but,
in earlier. ages, to pay or fight as they were told. Under this head
come the numerous swarm of Edicts, Declarations, Articles, Ordin-
ances, Petitions, Requests, and Resolutions of Most Christian Kings,
Illustrious Princes, and the representative bodies of which they from
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 4r

time to time invoked the assistance. The student of French history
would not leave on the shelf a r2mo volume, let us say, in nice old
red morocco, entitled Zraztté des droits de la Reyne trés Chrestienne
sur divers estats de [Espagne (1667). Rather would he look further
for a very similar volume to put by its side—Vérité défendue des

 

Last leaf of a Déclavation du Roy. Printed by Antoine Estienne. 8vo. 1631.

Sofismes de la France etc. & la Sphére (1668) ; and should he find both,
might return with great content to study the tremendous question
of the Spanish Succession. The complete reports of the States-
General of 1614, printed in handy form by Morel and others, might
a few years ago have been found “lying about ” within a mile of the
spot. on which we write. So, for that matter, was the Official List
A2 ‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

of all * Conspirators” guillotined by the Revolutionary Tribunal up to
the fourth year of the one and (except in the matter of heads)
indivisible Republic—the original French text, that is, although
some twenty years before the eleven numbers uncut sold at Messrs.
Sotheby’s for six guineas. .

A good example of the strictly historical Tract would be the
mysterious-looking, poorly printed—and there is a certain poor and
rough badness of typography and paper which is to the expert eye
more appetising than the “largest” glories of the medizeval or even
the Kelmscott Press—the poorly printed thin 4to, we were observing,
hight Sguétinio della libertad Veneta, &c., printed at Mirandola in
1612. This severe attack (by a Spanish diplomatist, as the learned
Bayle tells us, Lettres Choisies, p. 133; sed?—the. authorship seems
to be undecided) upon Venetian independence of the Empire, was
rigorously suppressed—“ every copy,” an old-fashioned bibliographer
writes, “having been impounded by the Signory.” Yet ove fell into
our hands but the other day, disguised as the work of one “S.
Quitinio,”—and we have our (other) eye upon a second—it skills
not to say where—the volume is not worth half a green Pickwick
wrapper.

But of ephemeral literature the greatest is not the historical tract,
but the pamphlet, the free and inevitable contribution of individual
opinion. It need not be pretended that all pamphlets are interesting.
For utter weariness of the flesh those of our own seventeenth
century have no rival. Who knoweth not those “ Horrid pictures of
Popish treachery,” .‘‘ Bundles of rods for the Back of this, that, or
the other Ungodly,” varied by ‘‘ Warning Cries,” “‘ Trumpet Calls,”
and endless “ Brief Displays.” of other people’s Iniquity, Ambition,
‘and Tyranny?... Anything more awful.to contemplate in the mass
than the thirty thousand leaflets which, historians tell us, issued from
the English press in the twenty years or so following upon 1640, the
biblical imagination boggles at. The.very. paper and print of these
things afflict the experienced eye with that atmosphere of dull, stale,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 43

jaded and pedantic controversy from which the uproarious license of
the Restoration was perhaps the only way of escape. Yet here too
occasional oases of interest, political or religious, may be marked
amid deserts of dulness; though the reader should not purchase
such works, even by the stack or cart-load, for the sake of finding
“‘rarities,” like needles in a bottle of hay.

In truth there is many an uncommon book which, as we once
heard a cynical bookseller observe to a would-be vendor, is ‘“‘almost”
yet not quite ‘‘as rare as the buyer.”

The best in this kind after all are but dry dust and drivel to the
productions of that true age of libels, the sixteenth century, and, in
particular, of the dark and stormy period of the religious-civil wars in
France, France the home of the fiercest of passions, the mistress of
spiritual épanchement, the inventress of the pamphlet, and the
memoir. From the most abstract theory of Society down to the
latest amour of Henri Quatre, from the mysteries and iniquities of
the Papacy, to the most scurrilous personalities. and the most
abominable crimes, every topic may be found discussed ad nauseam,
m the literature of this excited age, and discussed in most cases at
white heat.

The Franco-Gallia of Francis Hotman (1573), the “contrat social,”
as one historian has called it, “‘ of the sixteenth century,” the Appeal
against Tyrants ( Edinburgh,” 1579) of Stephanus Junius Brutus,
alias Hubert Languet, the correspondent of Sir Philip Sidney—the
discourse on Voluntary Slavery of the enlightened Estienne de la
Boétie,! the admired of Montaigne—these mark some of the higher

1 The important tract of La Boétie (1530-1568) Le Contr’ un ou Discours de la
servitude volontaire (see Montaigne, Zssais, 11.) appeared in an imperfect form
in the Mémozres de ? Estat de France (see p. 254), 3 vols. 1578, which by the
way contain a large number of celebrated pamphlets of the time, the és?
vragique de Marie Royne a’ Escosse, the Discours merveilleux de la Vie de Catherine
de Medici (usually attributed to Estienne), and various political ephemerides.
For an account of the treatises of Barclay, Buchanan, Mariana (De Xege, 1599,
rare), see Hallam, who points out what a store of constitutional arguments and
44. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

levels of thought. The Alarum of Frenchmen, the De Furoribus
Gallicis, are more immediately concerned with actual history, while
of the literature of the “‘ League,” the Histoire au vray du meurtre
de M. le Duc de Guise (1589, with a woodcut of the Duke lying on
the ground pierced with five poniards), and the Banguet du Comte
a’ Aréte (1594), a ferocious attack by the turncoat Louis d’Orléans
upon “the hypocrisy of the King of Navarre, and the morals of him
and his companions ”—would be fairly typical specimens. The first
editions of such opuscula are not only rare, but, in a chastened
intellectual sense, of considerable value. But of all Tracts for the
Times (and such times!) none rivals in interest (or in bulk, for
brevity is not essential to the nature of a pamphlet) that celebrated
miscellany of iniquity, half concealed under the mask of an erudite
commentary, the immortal Zveatise of Wonders, or Apology for
fferodotus, from which scores of modern authors have drawn such
priceless materials. The original edition of this work (1566), con-
taining passages afterwards mutilated and suppressed, is a historic
rarity.

Estienne’s Apology is pre-eminently a social tract, as much so as
Young’s Centaur not Fabulous. Of the political and religious out-
bursts of this period, the greatest beyond doubt is the little volume
of the Satire Menippée (1593), in which the awakening common sense
of distracted France found an antidote to the venomous drug of
‘¢ Spanish ” fanaticism, and quenched in torrents of ridicule the dying
ashes of the League.

precedents (utilized to some extent in the political struggles of the seventeenth
century) were accumulated during this period.

1 The Reverllematin des Francois & de leurs voisins, par Eusebe Philadelphe
(Theod. Beza ?) Edimbourg (Genéve ?) 1574, is tolerably rare. The only copy for
sale, which I know of, is priced about £2 55. The first part of the work,
is merely a translation of the Latin Dzalogus de Cade Hugonottorum, &c.,
excudebat Adamus de Monte. Oragnize, 1573,—a little volume by no means equal
in interest to Hotman’s Vera et simplex narratio (of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew) auctore Varamundo Frisio, 12mo, Londini (and elsewhere), 1573.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY. 45

The intensity of feeling expressed in a publication varies, as a rule,
—if one may hazard the axiom—inversely to its bulk : and great
is the amount of passion and enthusiastic ratiocination compressed
into the pamphlet, from an Jnvectiva of Poggio on the poetry of
Lorenzo Valla (6 pp. black letter, 148—), to Tract 90, or even the
latest threepenny ebullition on Bimetallism or Fair Trade. More-
over, since it is only bulky and pig-skinned. volumes that preserve
themselves, we can seldom be surprised at the rarity of a tract which
we may happen to want for any of the diverse reasons above dis-
cussed, since the material life of such frail things is but the matter of
a day. Like flies, indeed, have they multiplied.at all epochs of excite-
ment, and like flies they perish, unless stored in the vecuedl factice,
that precious repository of the rare, the forgotten, and, very often, the
unknown and consequently uncatalogued.

Hence the practical collector will keep open for such volumes—
obscurely lettered, imperfectly indexed in MS.—an eagle eye. His
library will contain scattered among its memoirs and histories a dozen
or a score of such ephemera as indicate the high-water mark, so to
speak, of the tidal waves of feelings which have at various periods
disturbed the stream of History. Small quartos for the “Civil War
Tracts” and sermons reflecting on Kings and Commonwealths ;
octavos for all the brood of the ‘ Higuiero Infierno” above men-
tioned, and the conciliatory literature that followed them; duo-
decimos for the exciting appeals of a century later, Z’ Zurope esclave
st l Angleterre ne rompt ses fers, 1678, La France sans Bornes, &c.,
all which the candidate in history should be asked to ‘date approxi-
mately.” Opuscula thus clearly entitled, and even perhaps Proposals
jor Reviving Christianity may explain themselves, but not so Loose
Meat for the Pigs, even with year and full title given.+

1 At the end of an 8vo volume containing the political works of Fletcher of
Saltoun, 1732, Zhe Memozrs of Voltaire, the (violently anti-religious):‘‘ Chapter
on Dreams” from a JZS. part of Paine’s Age of Reason, and a few other items, I
find T. Spence’s rare and curious Satires upon the House of Hanover—(1795).
46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RARITY.

But facile princeps of all pamphlets of the age when, as Arthur
Young tells us, every morning produced a new swarm (and that is,
surely, of all pamphlets in history), stands that introductory handbook
to the French Revolution, the famous Qu’est-ce gue le Tiers Etat?
of the Abbé Sityes.1 We do not know that this work—a thin
volume in large octavo, dated 1789—can be called rare or recherché,
even in the first edition, but it is certainly not common, and quite

worthy of pursuit for its own sake.

For it is not ‘‘ rarity” alone or in chief that has been here con-
sidered, but the reasons which have produced it, or should “if men
were wise,” produce it. And on the shores of this vast and trackless
ocean of “ Ephemera,” almost all rare and mostly, we may surely say,
of little worth, further research even of the lightest and most irregular
kind is easily deterred. Here, then, with a tardy regard for the
reader’s patience, shall this all too common Discourse of Rarities be
brought to a close.

One verse of its truculent poetry, which belongs to a past age and may be usefully
contrasted with that, for example, of Mr. Eric Mackay, runs as follows :—
“ Gruntum, snorum
In terrorum
Let us keep de Schwine O!
Twill save from chip chop
Our stout wig-block
By de Guillotine O!”

In vain would the collector look nowadays for such publications at the ‘‘ Hive
of Liberty” in Holborn! Some dozen 12mo reflections upon the dangerous
greatness of France, the duty of Great Britain, &c., fill a dumpy little volume
dated 1670 to 1700.

1 3me edition, s.l. 1789. A work containing many original and striking reflec-
tions, which are as interesting to-day as they were a century ago. The lengthy
anonymous quotation on the title-page—‘‘ Tant que le Philosophe n’excéde point
les limites de la vérité, ne l’accusez pas d’aller trop loin,” &c., might serve as a
compendium of French idealism. The work was written during the assembly
of notables in 1788, and first appeared in January 1789. The “‘ Three Questions ”
with which it opens have become historical—

1°. Qw’est-ce que le Tiers Etat ?—Tout.

2°. Qu’a-t-il été jusquw’ 4 présent dans l’ordre politique ?—Rien.

3°. Que demande-t-il?—4 ére quelque chose.
II.

A GASCON TRAGEDY
(14TH CENTURY).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

m M)%

From De Foix’s Deduicts de la Chasse des bestes, &c. (1507). Vérard. (Brit, Mus.c. 31, m. 2.)
See Note on p. 53 fost.

 
A GASCON TRAGEDY.

Z|ERY late on the evening of St. Catherine’s Day (Nov.
{| 25), in the year 1388, Jean Froissart, Canon and
Treasurer of Chimay, accompanied by a friend, rode
into the little town of Ortais (some twenty miles
from Pau), and dismounted at the hostel of the
“Moon,” a small inn still in existence and known to modern travel-
lers as “La Belle Hétesse.”!

Having sent word of his arrival to the castle of the Comte de Foix,
whom he had come to visit (with the view of acquiring information
at first hand of the wars in Gascony and Spain), the historian, who
bore letters of introduction from his patron, the Comte de Blois, was
at once received with every hospitality, and remained as his lord-
ship’s guest, so he expressly tells us, for more than twelve weeks.

Ortais, or Orthez as it is now spelt, was once, as we may learn

  

1 Chroniques de France, Angleterre et d@ Espaigne. Reveu par Denis Sauvage
de Fontenailles-en-Brie. Fol. Jan de Tournes, Lyon, 1559-60-61 (Bk. III., ch. 8).
This admirably printed edition (the first edzted Froissart, ‘‘ peu commune
trés belle—infiniment supérieure aux précédentes,” Srzmet), which bears upon its.
title the device reproduced on the next page, is by no means to be despised for the
purposes of the general reader: who should moreover possess T. Johnes’s Memoir,
G»c., of Froissart (translated wzthk additions from the French of Ste. Palaye):
8vo, Lond. 1801. The complete text of the Chronicles is now accessible in the
twenty-five volumes published by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. Brussels, 1870,
&c. The story here rehearsed will be found in vol. xi.

E
50 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

from modern guide-books, a place of considerable importance, and
the residence of the Princes of Bearn, until, at the close of the
fifteenth century, they removed to Pau.

Of the “Castle of Moncada,” built after a Spanish model by
Gaston de Foix in 1240, and dismantled by Cardinal Richelieu, but
one stately tower and a few ruined walls remain.

QVOD TIBI

FIERI NON
VIS,ALTERI
NE FECERIS,

 

The associations of the place seem, curiously enough, to be
mostly of a sanguinary cast. On the heights above the little town
(Feb. 27, 1814) we defeated the French army under Soult in a
bloody engagement, the only one in which the Duke of Wellington
was ever injured.

From the Gothic Bridge, or rather from the tower in the centre
of it, the Calvinistic soldiery, who took the tower by assault in 1569,
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 51

are said to have precipitated into the river the Roman Catholic
priests found with arms in their hands, who refused to abjure their
religion.

Lastly, the castle—more particularly the tower—was the scene
of unparalleled crimes during the life of the brutal Gaston Phoebus,
who filled its dungeons with the victims of his unbridled passion ;
among whom were his kinsman, the Viscomte de Chateaubon, Pierre
Arnaut, the faithful Governor of Lourdes,! and finally his own son
and only child, whom he killed with his knife here in the dark cell in
which he had caused him to be tmmured. ‘ Blanche de Navarre,” we
are further told, “was poisoned here” by her younger sister, the
‘Comtesse de Foix. That was in 1466.

The place was in fact a complete mediaeval Chamber of Horrors,
and the brutal ‘“‘ Gaston Phcebus,” Comte de Foix, has been handed
down in history as a monster of profligate iniquity in a period when
such celebrity was no trifling achievement.

1 The horrid murder of Pierre Arnaut is described in detail (Chronique, iii. 6)
by the Chevalier d’Espaing du Lyon, whose store of anecdotes beguiled, as well
they might, the long ride from Pamiers (where Froissart had met him) to Ortais.
‘The Count, his relative and liege lord, having invited the Governor of Lourdes to a
parley, adjured him to give up the citadel. The latter declined, with profuse
apologies, saying he was in honour bound to the King of England, who had
placed him there. On this De Foix, in mortal rage, drew a dagger, and crying
“‘Ha, traitor! ‘No,’ sayest thou? By this head it shall not be for nought !”
‘stabbed him fiercely in five places. ‘‘Oh, my lord!” cried Arnaut, ‘‘you do no
knightly deed to send for me and then murder me!” “‘But stabbed he was
whether he liked it or not” (¢outefors 22 eut ces cing coups de dague) is the singular
comment; and the Count ordered him to be thrown into the castle ditch, where
he shortly afterwards died. But not a knight nor baron dared stir a finger to
prevent it... . De Foix’s ‘‘neighbours,” the kings of France and England, were,
the same informant tells us, a perpetual source of diplomatic anxiety to this
“‘sage prince,” who was careful never to offend unnecessarily any great lord.
He could levy any day more men-at-arms than either of the kings of Aragon
and Navarre. In response to Froissart’s cross-examination, his companion was
going on to recount the fate of young Gaston, but it was too late for so long a
story, as the travellers were just then arriving at Tarbes, where they made them-
selves very comfortable at the ‘‘ Star.’

E 2
52 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

During the fourteenth century the feudal system was at the height
of its power; and the tremendous forces inevitably developed
within itself by European society for dealing with a chronically
recrudescent chaos, seemed only too often—in their independence of
any public opinion—to act in the direction of unmixed evil.

The despotic defiance by feudal lords (the ideal “ wicked barons ”
of later romance) of the conceptions of right and wrong, law and
outrage, which were in an irregular way beginning to leaven society,
is a thing peculiar to the age when the power of the former, already
at its zenith, had yet no cause to fear extinction from the new in-
fluences of gunpowder, the printing-press, and general enlighten-
ment.

This is one of the great sources of interest attaching to the period
of history illuminated for us by the brilliant colouring of the greatest
of born chroniclers.

Froissart in his history seems to live for the purpose of accumu-
lating information on every subject which might interest posterity.
Inconsistent, inaccurate, as he often is, heartless (gud pis est) as he
often seems, as to his capacity for telling a story there can be but
one opinion ; and nothing in his whole work forms a more complete,
instructive, and dramatic episode than that briefly and incorrectly
abstracted in the passage we have quoted from Mr. Murray’s.
“Guide.”

The genealogy of the Counts of Foix and Bearn, according to
the Art de Vérifier les Dates, extends, with but one break of the
direct succession, from the tenth century to the end of the fifteenth,.
where it merges in the royal house of Navarre ; and of all who bore
the title none was more famous, or infamous, than the particular
Gaston III., called “Phoebus,” in the annals of the De Foix family
cited by Denis Sauvage; whether on account of his long and flow-
ing hair, his general personal attractions, or of his passion for the
chase, seems not quite certain.! Certainly no one would con-

1 See a note in De Lettenhove’s edition.
A GASCON TRAGEDY 53

jecture, from Froissart’s description, that the gentleman who, on this
November evening, in the year of grace 1388, received the chronicler
into his magnificent chateau, and there ‘‘made him good cheer” for
some three months, was identical with the ‘‘ monster of iniquity,” the
brutal tyrant whose cold-blooded murder of his only son brought to
an end the long generations of the ancient barons of Foix.

For Froissart, who indubitably saw the ogre in his castle, and knew
him, as we might say, “at home,” was, it may fairly be presumed,
disposed to take people, and especially the rich and powerful, as he
found them, with perhaps no special care as to how they treated
their other fellow-beings.

The Count was at this time, he tells us, about fifty-nine years of
age. “T tell you I have seen in my time many knights, kings, princes
and others, but never none have I seen so handsome, so tall, so well
built,” as the Count Gaston Phoebus. He was so perfect in all
respects gu’on ne le pouuoit trop louery—an Admirable Crichton, in
fact, as we are shown by the detailed portrait that follows.

A splendid figure of a man, brave, beautiful, accomplished, muni-
ficent, with a bright colour, a winning smile, and green eyes, from
which darted now and then an amorous glance.

A sage statesman, and a wise ruler, a skilful and daring warrior
(for had he not fought in all parts of Europe, slaughtered the
“‘heathen” in Prussia, engaged, on his own account, the Powers
Spain, England, Aragon, and Navarre, and even defied the King
of France himself, with tolerable success?), “he loved what should
be loved, and hated what should be hated.” Most regular in all
religious observances, 7/ disoit planté d’oraisons, with every night a
“Notturne ” of the Psalter, Hours of our Lady, The Holy Spirit, and
the Cross, with Watches for the Dead; and every day five florins
given in small change to the poor, and alms at the gate for all comers.
The Count was also an ardent sportsman, and even an author upon
his favourite subject,! fond of dogs above all animals—we are told

1 The book is entitled Miroir de Phébus des déduits de la Chasse des bestes
54 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

elsewhere that he kept several hundred—liberal and hospitable.
At midnight, the dinner hour, twelve varlets carried twelve torches.
to light him and his numerous guests to the dining hall, where a
plentiful banquet was daily spread pour souper qui souper vouloit.
None spoke to the Count (who, by the way, was particularly partial
to fowd, especially the legs and wings) unless first addressed. At
other times he was approachable by any one, and spoke them fair
and “lovingly,” though his answers were brief and presumably to the
point! The castle was, of course, thronged with knights and squires.
from all quarters; it was a great centre of news, and there was much
talk of “love” and “feats of arms,” the principal “ news” in the good

old days of Jean Froissart.

Then there was music. The Count was well skilled in the art,
and had many a song, rondeau, and virelet sung before him of an
evening. These fanciful forms of verse were just becoming popular.”
Froissart, moreover—on such terms were the two—had brought the

Sauvaiges & des oyseaux de proie, and seems to have been first printed in black
letter about 1505, and by Anthoine Verard (in 1507) with woodcut illustrations, of
which two editions copies are in the British Museum. De Foix is cited as a
great authority on sport by Jacques de Fouilloux in his Vewerie, 4to. 1585.
Froissart, who brought the Count four greyhounds (called Tristan, Hector, Brown,
and Roland) from England, was himself, as he travelled on horseback with his.
portmanteau behind him, always accompanied by one of these animals. (See
Sainte-Palaye’s Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie, la Chasse, &c., 3 vols. 8vo,
1781 ; a work containing several valuable original texts.)

1 £.g., on the critical occasion of the defection of d’Armagnac, when others.
thought of retreat. ‘‘ As we are here, my lord,” said De Foix to his father, ‘‘ we
will fight your enemies,” and he started off with 1,700 men at helm, and 6,000
foot, killed 11,000 Spaniards, and chased their king out to sea, bringing his son
and brother home as prisoners. The Count was then quite a young man.

2 Massieu (Hist. de la Poésie Francaise, 8vo, 1739) says that Froissart did much
to bring them into vogue. Of the poems composed by the worthy canon himself,
Estienne Pasquier (Recherches de la France, Book vi., ch. 5) gives « list taken
from a volume of the same which he had seen in Francis I.’s library at Fontaine-
bleau. One of these pieces, cited by Sainte-Palaye (Memoirs of Froissart), was
a pastoral in honour of Gaston Phoebus—a truly Arcadian subject !
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 55

Count a precious volume written out by himself at the request of
King Wincelaus of Bohemia, Duke of Luxemburg and Brabant, and
containing all that “gentle Duke’s”! poetical works. Every night
after dinner was Froissart requested to read this book aloud (it was
called, he tells us, “ Meliader”), and during the reading no one dared
to utter a sound, so anxious was the Count that it should be heard
properly; but such literary points as occurred to him he would
himself discuss with the reader, “ot iz his native Gascon, but in
good French and fair.”

In truth, De Foix was quite an ideal host, and with all the lavish
munificence of his court (no visitor departed without a handsome
douceur), a careful and strict man of business. He kept a safe in his
privateroom. Twelve agents managed the estates, under a controller,
who had to show vouchers for everything to the Count himself; and
there were four copying-clerks who had to be ready (bien convenoit
que fussent prests) when the master of Foix stepped hurriedly out of
his study to read and answer letters.

This last detail of the accounts has a touch almost of Gilbertian
burlesque when we consider that after a successful foray among the
Armagnacs? or other relatives or neighbours, the popular form of rural
visit in the fourteenth century, there would frequently be a dozen
or a score of distinguished prisoners in the dungeons at Orthez.
The “bag” made at Cassitres in 1362 alone (d'une seule prise),

1 The Royal balladmonger is no other than the Wincelaus, King of Bohemia,
Emperor of Germany and son of Charles IV., known to history as ‘‘the
drunkard,” whose cruelties and debauchery earned him the name of the ‘‘ Nero of
Germany.” He succeeded his father in 1378, and having been born in 1359,
must now have been in his thirtieth or thirty-first year. His sister married the
unfortunate Richard II., and became the ‘‘ good Queen Anne” of the fourteenth
century, who protected the Lollards, and introduced the side-saddle into England.

2 The endless quarrels of D’Armagnac arose from the claims of the latter
(who had been disinherited by his father for not appearing in arms against the
Spaniards, v. note, p. 54) to certain rights then conferred upon the hero of this
story.
56 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

as described in a previous chapter, which included the Count
D’Armagnac (husband of De Foix’s eldest sister) himself, and many
inferior nobles, brought in a sum total of 1,800,000 francs, doubtless
duly apportioned on the credit side of the “‘roolles & livres escrits ”
aforesaid, minus the expense of each prisoner’s board and lodging.
For the Count “never loved wild debauch, nor foolish extravagance,
but would know each month what became of his property.” His
economy is exhibited in an anecdote related elsewhere, but which, as
Froissart himself is so fond of saying, is not altogether out of place
here, although it chiefly illustrates the popular practical joke of the
fourteenth century. One Christmas night, when the house was
crowded with guests, an intimate friend and neighbour, one Ernauton
d’Espaigne (a gentleman of remarkable physique), happened to be in
the great gallery, to which you go up by twenty-four steps, where there
was a chimney, and sometimes, when the Count de Foix was at home,
a very small fire—such was his rule—and on other occasions none
at all, however cold it was. ‘ Lord, what a wretched fire,” exclaimed
the cheery D’Espaigne, who had probably been out hunting all day,
“for such a frosty night!” and without more ado he tripped off
down the gallery and steps, and out into the courtyard, where, as he
had noticed from the windows, there chanced to be a number of
donkeys standing laden with wood. Promptly seizing the biggest,
he carried it upstairs on his shoulders, and threw the animal, feet
uppermost, wood and all, upon the fire, amid roars of laughter from
De Foix and the company. This was on a festive occasion, and
neither ass nor wood belonged, as it happened, to the Count. But
to return to our serious narrative. ... ‘‘ And well as any did he know
whom to trust, and how to take what belonged to him” —without, we
may be sure, waiting to be asked. Nor need we wonder that he was
continually amassing treasure against a rainy day ; for even so great a
lord was anxious, we are reminded, as to the future.

But with all this external splendour and prosperity there was a
skeleton in the cupboard, a death’s head at the nightly banquet.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 57

The Comte de Foix and Madame his lady were not on good
terms, nor had been for a long time: and their only son was, alas!
no more. On this latter point Sir John, as we know, was curious.
He had probably too much tact to ask De Foix himself how the
death (of which he had heard from his fellow-traveller D’Espaigne)
had occurred. The green eyes might have replied with a flash of
something different from love. So he discreetly inquired of an
ancient and notable “Esquire” of the House, and heard and re-
corded for our benefit the whole “ piteous tale.”

It is far from being the only tale, the only family scandal
recorded by an indefatigable chronicler, who, if he lacked depth
of feeling and perception, was at least singleminded in his indus-
try. For:some forty years, as we know, he never rested—travell-
ing, inquiring, exploring records and documents, and sparing no
expense (which his own or a patron’s purse could supply), and
nightly noting down the results of his labours. And even had he
deliberately gone aside to falsify the personal character of an
important personage in history, he might have given good politic
reasons for it. Suppose the account written—nothing is more
likely—during the early part of his stay at Orthez, and that the
gentle Count had asked him one evening to read aloud his own
work instead of those eternal rondeaux and virelets of the “German
Nero,” nay, even insisted on despatching one of his ready “clerks”
to fetch the MS.: how then? And, to take the least danger, fancy
quarrelling, on account of a few private peccadilloes, with a man who
had such priceless information to give relating to every war of the
last twenty years! Doubtless Froissart acted for the best. The
probability is also that his hasty and brilliant portrait was perfectly
sincere. In any case it forms an admirable introduction to the
tragedy that follows. If it is difficult not to smile at the after-dinner
eloquence of Froissart’s account of his noble host; nothing more
natural was ever penned by any easy-going and uncritical visitor
entertained in so sympathetic and sumptuous a style.
58 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

The Count and his lady—so said the ancient esquire in private
conference with the Canon—were not, “truth to tell,” on good terms.
The reason was simplicity itself. The Countess was the sister of the
King of Navarre, by whom the Sieur d’Albreth had been “ pledged ”
with the Count, for the sum of fifty thousand francs.1 He was kept
in one of the dungeons at Orthez by his uncle Gaston. The latter
knowing the King of Navarre to be “crafty and malicious,” was
unwilling, in spite of the entreaties of the Countess, to trust his
brother-in-law for this large amount, and the event seems to show that
he here exhibited the prudence for which Froissart gave him credit.

But the lady was bitterly wroth. ‘My lord,” said she, ‘you do
but scant honour to the King my brother when you will not trust
him for fifty thousand francs. Jf you never got more out of the
Armagnacs and Labrissiens® than you have had already,” she con-
tinued, treating the Count’s commercial warfare with his relatives as
one might an abuse of their hospitality, “that should suffice you ;”
and she concluded with a clinching argument. Fifty thousand
francs was the precise amount of the marriage settlement which
her lord, as she reminds him with some asperity, was bound
to hand over to Monseigneur her brother, presumably in trust for
her. To which the Count Gaston Phcebus replied curtly, ‘“‘ Madam,
you say truth. But if I thought the King of Navarre would so
reckon the sum, the Sieur D’Albret should never leave Orthez till I
had been paid the last penny. But since you ask it, I will let him
go, not for love of you, but of my son.”

1 Compare the figures given above (p. 56). These were go/d francs, first coined
in 1360, and called francs & cheval (from their bearing a mounted figure of the
king) as distinguished from the franc a ped introduced by Charles V. Silver
francs do not appear till 1575. Chéruel, Dect. des Lnstitutions, &c.

The franc @’or may be roughly valued at about £1. The ransom of King John
when captured at Poictiers in 1356 was 3,000,000 crowns, or something between
one and a half and two million pounds sterling. But the fluctuations of money
values in the fourteenth century baffle calculation. Vzde Michelet, Hzst. Fr.

2 Those of Labreth, otherwise called Albreth. Sauvage.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 59

And at this point we may conjecture how the speaker “parted
with huge strides among his dogs.”

So, however, the matter was arranged. D’Albreth gave a bond
to his highness of Navarre (who became De Foix’s debtor) and went
back to France, where he married the Duke of Bourbon’s sister.
Before that, however, he had repaid “at his ease” the sum due to
the King of Navarre. But it was never forwarded to De Foix.
Therefore he suggested that the Countess should pay a visit to her
brother and explain that the Count took it much amiss that he was
not paid “what was his.” The lady readily consented to do so, and
went off to the court at Pamplona to her brother, who received her
gladly. The Countess gave him her message straight to the point.
But the King (who also had a genius for saying what he meant)
replied, “ My fair sister, that money is yours; De Foix owes it you
for dower, and long as I have control over it never out of the Kingdom
of Navarre shall it go.”

“ Nay, my lord,” quoth the Countess, “that will be to make too
great hatred betwixt myself and the Count. If you hold to your word

1 The business-like manner in which these affairs were conducted may be
seen from the case mentioned in another chapter (III.). The ransom of the
Count d’Armagnac amounted to 260,000 francs. The Prince of Wales (‘‘ The
Black Prince”) on one occasion, being requested to beg him off, replied (with that
royal tact and good sense to which we are still accustomed) that, ‘‘all things con-
sidered,” he could not undertake to do so. ‘*‘ You were taken,” he replied to
D’ Armagnac, ‘in fair fight, and our cousin De Foix risked his person and men
in adventure against you, and you must abide the result. Neither my royal
father nor myself would like to be asked to give up what we have lawfully got.”
In fact, they inclined (as no one has told us better than Froissart) rather to the
opposite course. . . . The Princess approached the subject in the kindness of her
heart, with feminine artfulness, by asking vaguely for a gift. But the noble Gaston
Phoebus, zz ev ses besongnes assez cler veoit, was too many for her. He was, he
said, a poor knight in quite a small way (‘‘ petit home”), who could not make
expensive presents; he had many outgoings, castles and towns to build (the
magnificent chateau at Pau, famous as the birthplace of Henry IV., was in fact
then in course of reconstruction) ; and he only consented, as a great favour, to
knock off the odd 60,000 francs.
60 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

I shall not dare return to my lord. He will slay me. He will say I
have deceived him.”

“T don’t know,” concluded her royal brother, “ what you will do
(ie ne say que vous ferez), whether you will go or whether you will
stay: but I am master of this money to take care of it for you, and
it will never go out of Navarre.”

So the Countess also stayed, for she did not dare return to Foix ;
and the Count, who had been on good terms with her before, began
to be consumed with hatred against her, though she was in nought
to blame, for not giving his message (he knew the malice of the King)
and returning to him. And thus matters remained. Now the young
Gaston, son? of my lord, was grown to a fine youth, tall and hand-
some, very like his father in build. Being now some fifteen or
sixteen years of age, he was married to a young lady, the daughter
of the Comte d’Armagnac, “ sister of the present Count”; and it
was hoped that this alliance would heal the feud between the two
families.

And the fancy took him to pay a visit to his uncle and his mother
in Navarre ; and he went, and stayed there some little time, and then
took his leave. But he could not, by any means, persuade his
mother to return with him. For she asked, had the Count, his
Sather, specially charged him to bring her back? and the boy could
only say, No; there had been no special mention of that at his
departure. So she dared not come. For she knew her husband to
be cruel (this and the remark of Arnaut’s quoted above are the
first suggestions that he was anything but “ gentil’’), at least, in
matters where he found cause for displeasure. So Gaston went alone
to take leave of his uncle the King at Pampelune.

1 Only son born of the Countess. He had two others, of one of whom we hear
presently. On the death of the Count, Yvain, here described as ill-disposed,
made an attempt to seize the inheritance. The Count had expressed a wish after
the death of young Gaston to prefer his illegitimate offspring to the legitimate
heir, Chateaubon, of whom he had a poor opinion.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 6L

The King of Navarre received him hospitably, and gave rich
presents both to the young Count and to his attendants, and kept
him there ten days.

Just before their departure, Gaston’s uncle drew him aside and
gave him a little purse full of powder, and said, “ Fair nephew, you
must do as I tell you. You are aware that the Comte de Foix is
wrongly enraged with your mother and my sister, which I much
regret, as doubtless do you. Now, to bring them on good terins
again, as soon as you have opportunity, take a little of this powder
(be sure no one sees you) and put it upon his food: and as soon as
ever he has eaten it, his one desire will be but to have your mother
again with him, and they will love one another and live together
in peace: which you must surely desire. But be sure to tell
no one.”

And the boy believed every word, and replied he would gladly do
it: and so went home, and was gaily received by his father, and
showed him the presents—all but one.

Now in the De Foix mansion it was usual for Yvain, the bastard,
to share the chamber of Gaston, and they loved one another from
children like true brothers ; and being much of one size and age
they even wore each other’s coats and clothes. And it happened
one day, as will with boys, that their clothes got mixed up, and
that Gaston’s coat got upon the bed of Yvain, and the latter, a
mischievous boy, noticed the powder in its little bag, and asked
Gaston, “What is this thing that you wear at your breast?” Of
this word Gaston had no joy at all, buti cried ‘“‘ Give me back the
coat. It has nothing to do with you.” And Yvain threw it him, and
Gaston put it on, and was more thoughtful than ever before, that day.
And it happened (as God would, to save the Comte de Foix) that
three days later Gaston quarrelled with his brother at fives, and
boxed his ears. And the boy Yvain, angered and sulky, went
crying to the Count’s chamber, where he found him, having just
heard a mass.
62 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

“What do you want, Yvain?”

“‘God’s name, my lord, Gaston has beaten me, but he deserves a
beating more than I do.”

“Why so?” said the Count, who at once became suspicious.

“My faith ! since he came back from Navarre he carries at his
breast a little bag all full of powder, but I know not what use it
is or what he will do with it : but that he has told me once or twice
that my lady, his mother, will soon be in your good graces more
than ever before.”

The unconscious Yvain was dismissed with the strictest injunction
to hold his tongue.

The Count, we are told, then spent a long time in thought, till the
dinner-hour, when he entered the hall and took his seat as usual.

According to the feudal custom of the day, the son Gaston waited
upon his father, handing him the successive courses, and tasting each
one himself.

He had no sooner placed the first dish before the Count, when
the latter, with a quick glance, detected the strings of the mysterious
purse hanging at the boy’s vest.1 Ze sang duy mua, and that not for
the first or second time, in Froissart’s brief account of one who never
forgave an injury and whose wrath was dreaded like the plague by
even his adult and powerful enemies.

“Gaston,” he said, ‘‘come here. I would speak with you
privately.”

Deathly pale, trembling and confounded, the boy stepped forward,
feeling that he was undone, as the Count, fumbling at his breast,
seized the fatal purse, drew it out, and taking a knife from the table
cut it open and found the powder.

1 The similar discovery described in Shakespeare’s Richard I/., Act v. Sc. 3
(a drama representing the same period as Froissart’s story), will recur to many
readers. Jn Aumerle’s case the seal ‘‘that hangs without his bosom ” betrays to
his father, the Duke of York (by what seems an extraordinary piece of carelessness),
his possession of a treasonable document.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 63

Putting some of it on a slice of bread, he called a dog and gave it
him to eat. The dog no sooner tasted it than he rolled his eyes and
lay dead on the floor.

The wrath of Gaston Phoebus broke all bounds, and in a moment
his son would have fared like Pierre Arnaut, but on this more im-
portant occasion knights and esquires rushed in between the two,
imploring the Count at least to inquire further into the matter. But
his first cry was, ‘‘ What! Gaston, caitiff! Jor you and the heritage
that should be yours have I had war aud hatred against the Kings of
France, England, Spain, Aragon, Navarre, and held my own against
them, and now you would murder me! You shall die for it.” And
he rushed from the table with his knife and would have killed the
boy. But friends and retainers fell on their knees in tears before
him. ‘Ah, good my lord, for God’s sake, mercy ; slay not Gaston.
You will have no other son. Let him be put in ward, but wait and
judge of the matter, for belike he had no guilt in the deed, and knew
not what he brought.”

“ Away with him, then,” cried the enraged Count, “to the tower.”
And there was the boy imprisoned. Of the companions that had
attended him to Navarre many were arrested, and many prudently
“departed.” But fifteen were put to death ‘most horribly ” ; for the
Count did not see how he could do otherwise, since they were in
the secrets of his son. And this, we are told, did move some to pity,
for they were as pleasant and well-looking esquires as any in all
Gascony. But they had never told of young Gaston’s wearing the
fatal purse (perhaps they never knew), and for that they died ‘“ most
horribly.” The news of these tragical proceedings spread soon over
the whole country: and the feeling which they aroused seems to

1 Of the King of Navarre—Charles II. ‘‘the bad” (1347-86)—it may be
observed that he had attempted, in a similar manner, the lives of the two un-
popular uncles of Charles VI. of France ; but he employed an English agent who
bungled the matter. (See Chapuy’s curious Hist. du Royaume de Navarre, 8vo,
1596, where this story is told with a few variations. )
64 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

show the Comte de Foix in a pleasing light. There can be no doubt
that he was a popular landlord in the feudal sense. He looked after
his own and protected them with the strong hand, as with a strong
and merciless hand he had suppressed the terrible rising of the
“‘Jacquerie.” Knightly adventurers who returned with great plenty
of plunder and prisoners from forays in other quarters, dared not
touch a thing on the De Foix property without paying for it—for
they might not “abide” his wrath: and not the precipitous pass of
Lagarde, where half a dozen might hold a host at bay, could keep
back Gaston Phoebus when “ greatly desirous to get by” that way, to
succour his people at Pamiers.

So the nobles and prelates, the estates of Bearn, in fact, gladly
assembled to zu¢ercede for the imprisoned youth. For when the
Count briefly expounded the crime and his fixed intention of putting
his son to death “as he deserved,” they, without argumentation, all
with one voice expressed their particular desire, “saving his good
grace,” that Gaston should not die. By these entreaties the Count,
it is said, was seriously moved. He bethought himself, and medi-
tated punishing the boy by a term of imprisonment, then sending
him for three or four years’ travel, till change of air had cured the
inherent viciousness of his disposition. And with this assurance he
sent the company away. But those who knew him best would not
leave without a positive promise of mercy,—/tant aimoyent Lenfant ,
and the Count promised, and they all went. No one seems to have
thought of consulting the boy himself, who remained shut up in the
Tower of Orthais, in a chamber “where there was little light.” In
similar apartments, as we know, other relatives of the Count had
been detained for periods varying according to their financial circum-
stances. Among others, his own heir, Chateaubon (a young
“coward,” in whom the Count could not be expected to take much
interest), had spent eight weeks there, and paid for such sumptuous
lodgings at the rate of 5,000 francs a week. Yet the young Gaston,
imprisoned only for ten days, seems to have taken it more to heart.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 65

Confined, “as he was,” and in his clothes (a thing, we pathetically
read, he was not used to), he grew even more melancholy, and cursed
the hour when he was born. He would not eat, and when the
servants brought him his food (and we are specially told what nice
servants they were) and said, ‘‘Gaston, here is your dinner,” he
would only say, ‘‘ Put it there,” and took no further notice.

The event had been so noised abroad that Pope Gregory XI.
sent a Cardinal from Avignon! to try to accommodate matters ;
but the Cardinal was stopped half-way by the news that it was too
late.

“ Having told you so much,” says the ancient esquire as if
Froissart would have let him stop there, ‘I may as well tell you the
end.” And thus it was. A servant having informed the Count that
Gaston would not eat, and that his food lay there all untasted, and
implored him to take thought for his son, the indignant father
strode upstairs to the tower, trimming his nails the while, as ill luck
would have it, with a small knife. The prison door being opened,
he.went up to the boy standing in the corner (consumed with
we know not what innocent indignation, faint with hunger, and
trembling before the wrath of his father), and, angrily asking him
what he meant by not eating, the baron, with his right hand, in which
the knife was covered, “all but the size of a gold piece,” “jobbed”
him, as one would say, roughly, in the neck, and went downstairs.
again. The blade, it seemed, could hardly have touched the flesh,

1 This shows that the death of Gaston must have taken place in 1377 (wher
Gregory XI., who died the next year, restored the Papal seat to Rome) or earlier,
z.e. at least eleven years before Froissart’s visit to Orthez. The bastard Yvain
grew up a likely and handsome youth, went to Court, and was a great favourite of
the young King Charles VI, During a ‘‘ mummery” (at the Hétel de St. Pol. in
Paris, mardy avant le Chandeleur, 1382), in which the latter and several of the
young nobility dressed up as ‘‘savages,” the Duke of: Orleans, by holding a
torch too near, accidentally set their inflammable costumes on fire. From
this accident Yvain lost his life, and the king himself ran considerable risk.
—Chroniques, 1V., 52.

r
66 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

anything to speak of; but by ill fate it chanced upon a vein, and
under the circumstances that was enough. Poor young Gaston,
the hope of the De Foixs, ‘turned aside” from this trying world of
alchemist-uncles and suspicious cut-throat fathers, and then and
there died.

When the Count heard of it (he had only just got back to his
room, and would not believe the news at first, till he had sent some
one to see) he was taken with one of his chronic attacks of indig.
nation, mingled, we may believe, with some serious regret that he
had not been more careful.

“ Ah, Gaston,” was his exclamation, “an ill chance this for me and
thee. I shall never know such joy again as I had before. Woe
worth the day thou wentest to Navarre ;” and he sent at once for
this barber, and then ordered mourning for himself and his retainers.

There was a grand funeral, of course, and much weeping and
‘wailing, and that was all.

And thus did God preserve the gentle Comte de Foix from the
wiles of his royal relative But it was not for very long.

Three years later we find Gaston Phoebus in the woods of
‘Sauveterre-—after a long summer morning devoted to his favourite
pastime of hunting—they had just killed and cured a bear—riding
with a party to the little village of Riou, where lunch had been
prepared.

It was “deep noon” (basse nonne)+ and very hot, and the room
had been nicely decorated with refreshing and sweet-smelling greenery.
‘The Count sat down and called for water. Scarcely had he dipped
his fingers (which were “long and fair”) in the silver bowl held by two
‘squires, when his face turned white, his feet trembled, and with one
cry, “Lord God, have mercy on me, I am dead,” he fell back
senseless; and though they applied bread, water, spices, and such

} The only trace of the ecclesiastic about Froissart is his chronology, expressed
in the terms prdme, tierce, vépres, and nonne, modified by the epithet haute or
basse. .
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 67

medizval restoratives, he was gone in half an hour, gone—shall we
say ?—to meet Pierre Arnaut, Gaston, and other known and unknown
victims of his lust and cruelty. His domains the disappointed tyrant
had devised to the French crown, but they were sold by the Duc
de Berri to Matthew, son of Bernard II., Vicomte de Carcasonne.!

The well-known Court doctrine as to the damnation of a “man
‘of quality” applies with far more point to a feudal tyrant, who was
also at least a stark man of action, than to his enfeebled descendant
of the Revolutionary period.

To deny heroism, nay, romantic grandeur, to the former, would
be absurd. But life, under their végzme, assumes somehow an un-
‘deniably sombre hue.

The mere recurrence in Froissart’s description of words expressive
of rage and ill-temper is such as to strike the eye. Someone is for
ever becoming courrouct, enfelonné, &c., as a prelude to someone else
being décollé, décapité, or, in some other form, occés. Eternal free-
booting, ‘‘chevauchées,” burning villages, outrages, and piteous
deaths teem through the volumes. Indeed, were every description
of bloodshed in these pages printed in a congenial red, not the most
brilliantly illuminated medizeval missal would compare with their
flaring hue. The thing does not seem matter for melancholy to the
parties chiefly concerned. With a light heart do they join the fre-
quent fray, “ fighting and cleaving one another so well it was wonder,”
with as sincere joy as any hero of Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s.?- Even to

1 Biographie Universelle.

2 See in particular the detailed description of 9 perfect fight (almost the best
the Chevalier de Foix, who described it to the chronicler, had ever known),
Bk. III., ch. 6. After three hours’ hard work, when the ‘‘ battle-axe ” stage had
been reached, those of the combatants who were out of breath and had been
“roughly handled” retired to a ditch or stream, and took off their ‘‘ bassinets ”
for a moment’s refreshment. Ernauton de Ste. Colombe being very hard put to
it and almost discomfited, his ‘‘varlet,” a stark man of his hands (the ‘‘varlets”’
as arule took no part in the combat, being presumably unarmed), came up and

BS 2
68 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

Froissart as spectator, and much more to the warriors themselves, did
it appear that there was nothing else half so well worth doing. To
those who were otherwise employed, matters appeared, we know, in
a very different light.

The Comte de Foix assured Froissart while complimenting him
on his history, that more remarkable things had occurred in “ the last
fifty years” than in three hundred before them. Oddly enough, this.
is just what most of us think at the present day. But from his point
of view, in which “ feats of arms” were the chief events of interest,
he was not altogether wrong. It was certainly an age of unbridled
violence, of moral and intellectual stagnation; the earth full of
triumphant iniquities ; righteousness, it would seem, scarcely ventur-
ing to look down from heaven; the hearts of men (of the few who.
had leisure or peace to reflect) failing them for fear and for looking
after those things which were coming upon the world, where so
faint and far glimmered the dawn of a better day. The misery
of the common people was everywhere terrible, and of all coun-
tries perhaps France suffered most. The Seven Years’ War of
Burgundy and Ghent, which ruined half the north of Europe and
“was deplored by Turks, Pagans, and Saracens”—“ you may
judge,” confides the chronicler, ‘how it affected adjoining
countries.” To the calamities of the English invasion were added.
the devastations of the Black Death. Charles V. ‘‘stifled,” as a
French historian tells us, “all spirit of liberty.” The crushing.
burden of taxes was yearly increased. The experiment of a.
permanent ¢az//e was coupled with the universal imposition of the

took his axe from him, saying ‘‘ Ernauton, you sit down and rest a bit ; you don’t
know how to fight,” and himself with a blow of his master’s weapon proceeded to
knock his antagonist ‘‘silly.” When the latter recovered himself the varlet
dodged his return blow, and threw him, threatening to take his life ‘‘ zmless you
surrender to my master.” ‘* Whois your master?” ‘‘ Ernauton de Ste. Colombe,
with whom you’ve been fighting all this time.” The esquire, as the varlet knelt
on him, presenting a dagger at his throat, agreed to this compromise—‘‘ to
appear at Lourdes in fifteen days, rescue or no rescue,”
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 69

more odious gadel/e, which had first become a regular crown mono-
poly in 1342. In 1357 the Parisian Bourgeoisie under Estienne
Marcel had inaugurated a civil war, in their demand for the reforma-
tion of abuses. And the next year burst forth the blind, wild-beast fury
of the Jacquerie ; stamped out in turn by the fierce reprisals of indig-
nant feudalism, assisted by the very Comte de Foix of whose heroism
we have heard so much. Yet this was but an item of calamity to
the chronic invasions of the English, whose kings and princes well
‘seem to have spent their leisure time, seldom interrupted by a ‘rain
-of stones” from heaven, in careering (chevauchant) up and down the
harried and mangled provinces of what, by a curious irony, they
‘called their own country.

In a special ‘‘ digression” upon the character of the Gascons and
the English (III. 22), Froissart tells us that he once heard the
Sieur d’Albreth at Paris make a singular observation, of which he
(the chronicler) made particular note. D’Albreth meeting a Breton
knight, the latter inquired how his country fared, and how he managed
(this was after D’Armagnac, D’Albreth, and others had been won
over by the kindness of King Charles V. “of blessed memory ’’—
‘Gascons could only be led by tact and kindness) ¢4o keep French
(comment 11 se savoit contenir a estre Frangots). ‘Thank God,”
replied D’Albreth, ‘I am pretty well. But I had more money, and so
had my people, when I made war for the King of England. Why,
on every foray we chanced on some rich mercer of Toulouse, Con-
don, Riolle, or Bergerath : and scarce a day but brought us some
good booty—dont nous étions frisques et jolts.” On which the Breton
gentleman laughed and said, “ Ah, that’s the way with you Gascons
—always after plundering your neighbours”—and the chronicler
made a mental note that the Sieur D’Albreth probably repented that
he had “turned French.” Other of his countrymen, we learn,
dissatisfied with the “kindness” shown them at court, went back to
their own country and their allegiance to the English crown.

It is quite a pathetic reflection that the only proposed “ invasion
7° A GASCON TRAGEDY.

of England” (1385) was, like several of later date, a miserable and
ruinous failure, ridiculed by Froissart with such scathing details of
English contempt as French historians, otherwise given to citation of
that author, do not like to reprint.1. And while a return of the black
death decimated the population, whole countrysides were often, by
the forays of the nearest resident nobility, swept of the better class
of inhabitants, whose ransoms had to be ground out of a starving
peasantry, only left behind for this useful purpose. The condition of
the latter, at the close of the fourteenth century, may be studied from
the nude in the bald and agonising ‘“ Plaint of the poor commoner
and labourer,” preserved for us by Monstrelet.?

It was also an age of peculiar and frantic extravagance among
the upper classes. The chronicler of St. Denis goes so far as to
attribute the defeat of his compatriots at Crecy (1346) to their
ridiculous and impossible style of dress. While the upper clothing,
made of the most expensive materials and elaborately embroidered,
was so tight that to take it off “was like skinning a person,’ and

1 The chapter (III. 36) is headed: ‘‘ Of the useless expenditure on the French
Navy and of the good preparations of the English to resist them.” English men-at-
arms mocked at the proposed invasion, and insolvent free companions comforted.
their debtors, saying, ‘‘The florins that shall pay you are now a-coining in
France.”

2 After ch. cclxiv. of the first book ‘s’ensuit ’#‘without any introduction “la.
complaincte du poure commun, et des poures laboureurs de France.”

‘* Helas, helas, helas, helas,
Prelats, princes et bons seigneurs,
Bourgeois, marchands, et advocats
Gens de mestier grans et mineurs,
Gens d’armes, et les trois Estats
Qui vivez sur nous laboureurs
: Confortez nous d’aucun bon ayde:
Vivre nous fault, c’est le reméde,” &c.
And the numerous verses that follow appeal with cogent logic, but as yet
humbly enough, to each of the above classes in turn. Chronigues a’ Enguerran.
de Monstrelet contenant les guerres ctviles, &c., qui suyvent celles de Froissart.
Chez P. Mettayer. 2 vols., fol. Paris, 1595.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 71

required assistance, the sleeves were so long that they almost swept
the ground. At the date of Poictiers, ten years later, French knights
and nobles went about laden with gold and jewels. The Duke of
Orleans, brother of Charles VI., wore, embroidered upon his sleeves,
“at full length,” the ballad “Ma dame, je suis plus joyeux.” The
notes of the tune were represented by jive hundred and sixty-eight
pearls!

The contrast of such barbaric luxury with the appalling misery
of the labouring classes appeared even to the latter to be part of a
natural law. The lower orders, ill-fed, neglected when not oppressed,
fell in thousands, as a contemporary Latin poet tells us, “before the
lightest breath” of the destroying plague.! ‘“ But fierce Fate spared
princes, nobles, knights, judges, gentlemen; of these few die,
because the life allotted them is one of enjoyment.” ‘“ Zo the poor
life is more cruel than death.” The pleasures of life, under such a
régime, seemed strictly reserved for the upper classes.

Upon the phenomena of unrestrained individual conduct we
have in this sketch specially dwelt. France was not the worst.
governed of countries at a period when every Italian city, as
Sismondi summarises the matter, had its tyrant, every tyrant was
stained with the blood of his kindred, and atrocious crime seemed
the recognised avenue to political power. King John, by no
means a bad specimen of a king, after raising 600,000 florins by the
sale of his daughter Isabel, aged eleven, to Galeazzo Visconti, Duke
of Milan—she was the affianced bride of Gian Maria, afterwards
celebrated as the most ferocious monster that ever sat on a throne,
who hunted men in the streets of his capital and cast them alive into
ovens2—escaped from the burden of his national and feudal re-

1 Cited from a French MS. in Wright’s edition of Piers Plowman.

2 See Corio, [storia di Milano, & Gtovio, Vite de’ Viscontd (8vo, 1632, p. 162).
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), « contemporary, merely says, ‘‘ipse nonnullos
vivos lacerandos canibus edendosque objecit.” Astoria Fiorentina, 4to. 1715,
p. 160 (sub. anno 1403). Giovio gives the name of the Huntsman. :
72 A GASCON TRAGEDY.

sponsibilities to the Paradise of—London, where, as we commonly
read, he ate himself to death in 1364. Charles VI., torn in pieces
by the unchecked fury of every evil passion—bloodthirsty and
other—found a different refuge—assisted, it was thought, by the
machinations of sorcerers—in insanity. Had there been a few more
monarchs like Pedro the Cruel, we should never have heard ill of
the Comte de Foix. It is but for one trait that we recall this tyrant,
who in any museum of the moral monstrosities of the age would
occupy a class by himself.

When at the suggestion of “‘a trusty Jew” (whose fair daughter
he loved) Pedro had despatched a ‘‘sergeant” to strangle his wife
(sister of the King of France), he revoked the order two days later,
thinking that the murder of a virtuous lady of such high lineage
might run counter to some dimly discerned ethical convention.
It was, unfortunately, too late. The sergeant, wearying of the
“pretty orisons” which she had leave to say first, had stifled the
queen with a cushion ; and thus the whole force of Pedro’s repent-
ance was diverted upon the Jew. The man of money was beguiled
awhile by the redemption of his teeth at 100,000 crowns apiece,
which (according to the biographer of Du Guesclin) seriously
impoverished him. But to Pedro it seemed but poor fun. The
wicked Jew was accordingly tortured in true medizval fashion,
blinded with hot irons, &c., &c., écarte, and finally hanged.t A
catalogue of the awful crimes of the century would fill many
volumes. It is yet more appalling to think to how many an in-

dividual,
Pinned to earth by the weight
And persistence of hate

of the zzstans tyrannus, death itself, as the poet above quoted tells

1 Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin (1314-1380), ed. Fr. Michel (with
portrait and facsimile of Bertrand’s signature), sm. 8vo., Paris, 1830, where the
whole story is related. This excellent and entertaining little history is one of
those that call themselves ‘‘ Romances” in the linguistic sense of the word.
A GASCON TRAGEDY. 73

us, must have been welcomed as a relief. Justice, though assisted
by the revival of torture, did but feel in the dark after minor wrong-
doers, without affording peace or security to the average harmless
and industrious citizen. True, there was the cloister. But that
nothing may be wanting to complete the picture, even religious ties
and hopes were enfeebled. The Papal Court of Avignon! was a
very sink of iniquity; and in 1378 came the great ecclesiastical
schism, shaking men’s religious convictions, and undermining their
allegiance to the Church long before Reform had attained shape or
power to replace it.

Medizvalism, in fact, with all its fierce chiaroscuro of blood-
stained splendour, is at its apogee, on the very verge of the precipice
down which are doomed to slide all human institutions and types
of society against which human nature itself comes to rebel.

And through the whole scene, past pillaged house and wasted land,
in gay converse with robber baron, knight, and esquire, good queen
and wicked prince, ever goes ‘“gallivanting” the cheery Froissart,
Canon of Chimay, and soi-disant Canon of Lille (for the reversion
never fell in), recking as little of Church preferment as of the unpaid
tavern bills in his parish at home—filled with but one thought, the
splendour of his age and the magnificence of the portrait of it which
he would leave behind, and ‘ well knowing,” as he avows with his
usual frankness, that ‘““‘when I am dead and rotten this grand and
lofty history shall be known far and wide, and all noble and worthy
folk shall therein take great pleasure and profit.”

1 De Sade, Mémotres pour la Vie de Fr., Pétrarque (3 vols. 4to, 1764), i. 60
& passim. Poisoning, we learn, was much in vogue, but rivalled by magic, in
particular the use of waxen “‘zmagines”’ of the person or persons to be removed,
which, in order to accomplish this object, were pricked and burnt. See Christina
Rossetti’s eerie ballad of ‘‘ Sister Helen.”
  
   
   
 

  
     
  
 

   
   

  
   
   

      
 
   
 
  

    
 
  
         

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I—THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

  

He} YTHOLOGY, comparative or other (though a positive
A Ve) mythology seems hardly conceivable), has in modern
days become a science so vast and serious as to be
quite terrifying to the casual reader. Scarcely may
he peruse the fairy tale that charmed his childhood
without being reminded of its ‘‘ variants” current in Kamschatka or
Timbuctoo : and a school of instructive and destructive criticism
which has descended upon old-fashioned literary conventions as the
Goths and Vandals descended upon the smiling plains of Italy, has:
shaken to its foundations that last stronghold of self-satisfaction—a.
faith in the independence of our own national and local “ideas,”
and in the originality of our favourite authors.

That the field of such a science should be vast in both dimensions.
of time and space is, however, not to be wondered at. We have
but to consider the number of deliberate story-tellers in any age,
to add thereto the proportion of persons incapable of reporting.
exactly what they have seen or heard, to multiply this sum total by
the quantity of credulous individuals for ever anxious to hear some
new or apparently new thing, and to allow for the increase of the
product by a sort of geometrical progression during any given
number of centuries, and the matter becomes statistically obvious.

The realm of inquiry, then, being not only immense, but misty in
78 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

outline, and roughly co-extensive with the history of mankind, the
principal danger for the inexperienced tyro is, that he should wander
aside from the faintest of tracks into that arid and pathless desert
where wild specialists chase one another for ever through the dusty
void. :

Kept within reasonable and humane bounds, the pastime of myth-
hunting has as decided and satisfying a charm as any other sport.
Nor should the bibliophile be precluded from dallying therewith,
after his fashion. In fact, it is with a view to encourage him in so
doing that this chapter has been written.

The invaluable M. Le Roux de Lincy, at the end of his excellent
edition of those Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, which amused the youthful
exile of Louis XI. (a work first printed by Antoine Vérard in 1486)
appends a most interesting genealogical table, showing (1) where the
original form of each story, if known, is to be found ; and (2) what
more recent authors have imitated or worked it up into something
different, and (to all, perhaps, but the expert in these studies) new
and strange. ;

Thus, if we take, for example, Novel No. 50 contributed by Antoine
de la Salle (the supposed author of the Quinze Joyes de Mariage),
the “original” is to be found in the Facetie of Poggio Bracciolini
(1380-1459) who probably had it from some obscure Latin source.
An imitation, on the other hand, appears both in the “novels” of
Malespini and in Zristram Shandy. No. XIV. again, which one
may read in Marmontel, and in the Condes of La Fontaine, is given
chapter and verse in Josephus.t ‘“ Origin,” of course, can only

1 Professor Morley, in his popular edition of the Confessio Amantis of John
‘Gower (1327-1408) has noted in a similar manner the many and various sources from
which that author drew the famous collection of stories which he has loosely and
pleasantly arranged under the headings of the ‘‘Seven Deadly Sins.” Josephus,
the ‘* Thebaid” of Statius (96 A.D.), Justin’s Epitome of Trogus Pompeius, the
Books of Daniel and of Kings, these—besides other medizeval and classical works
—are among his materials, of which Ovid (especially in the Metamorphoses) sup-
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 79

be a comparative expression for a large proportion of such cases.
Medieval stories deal largely with questions of conduct little affected
by changes of man’s environment. The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles
-are no more new than they are “‘ proper,” and Barbazan’s fascinating
three volumes of /adliaux, though containing a few incidents that
border upon decency,—may all be described as primitive, especially
in their morality ; and many of them might, from their general drift,
have been confided to Eve by the old serpent, about the date of the
Fall of Man.

European man, however, experienced a sort of second fall during
the “dark ages,” and the true medieval story has not the healthy
‘simplicity of an early classic myth, but presents the appearance,
like certain old books, of having been not only thumbed and
handled, but repaired and perhaps fraudulently ‘ hocussed-up ”
by successive hands. Homer, on the other hand, and Aischylus,
and the Eddas, so complete is the Scandinavian rejuvenescence,
recall the virgin splendours of an unsullied “original impression.”

plies as much as all the remaining authors put together. Then the curious tale of
the adder, which stops zts ears (a feat still puzzling to many a juvenile reader of
the Psalms) wth its ¢az/, is taken from the ‘‘ Etymologia” of St. Isidore, of
Seville (570-635), author of a Chronicle of the Goths printed with that of
Jornandes, (8vo, 1597).

And the story of ‘‘ Alexander and the Pirate” (in Bk. III. Wrath; ch. 5,
Homicide) is assigned to Augustine, De Civztate Dei, and the Gesta Romanorum.
Prof. Morley does not, however, give its original source, which may be found in
a curious note to Jannet’s edition of Villon. Francois Villon, who recounts the
-anecdote in a good ballad, assigned it to Valerius Maximus.

“*Valére pour vray nous lescrit
Qui fut nommé le grand 4 Romme.”

But it is not in the ‘‘ Dicta et Facta Memorabilia” of that author, and it zs in
the fragment of Cicero’s treatise De Republicé, preserved by Nonius Marcellus,
.a grammarian of the sixth century, and will be found on p. 558 of the Plantin
Edition (8vo, 1565) of his Dez Proprietate Sermonum, under the word
“*Myoparo,” which means a pirate boat. The story was apparently unknown to
Quintus Curtius and to Arrian.
80 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

Few myths indeed can boast a pure and authentic genealogy ; never-
theless the tracking of this curious and cross-bred game, up hill and
down dale, so to speak, across the wilds of history soon becomes
quite an exciting occupation.

Soon also the reader finds that to follow it with comfort and satis-
faction he must surround himself with such a portentous pile of
volumes as would attract attention even in the rotunda of the British
Museum.

With modern fiction and the leading dramatists we may presume
him to be well supplied. La Fontaine, Don Quixote, Boccacio, Chaucer
(with Tyrwhitt’s introduction to the Canterbury Tales), the Cent
Nouvelles Nouvelles already referred to, the Heptameron of the Queen
of Navarre (1575) and other such standard works do but represent
the “cover” in which the sport is ordinarily carried on. But in
case of a bare ‘‘idea” breaking back in the direction of antiquity, we
must have ready all the ancient classics—Homer, Hesiod, Hero-
dotus, Plato, Aristotle, the A®sopian fables (including those of
Babrius and Avienus), and of course Virgil, Ovid, and the Latin
classics, through which so much of Greek myth (notably in relation
to Purgatory) filtered into the mind of the early theologian. The
ancient classics, we say, assuming that the reader’s shelves are lined
with respectable Dindorfs and Hermanns, Oxford and Cambridge
texts bound in academic “russia,” and profusely annotated with
the oditer dicta of some distinguished lecturer now dead and gone.
But supposing that to the original text he should prefer a
comprehensive “crib,” there is none better than the splendid
Bibliotheca of Apollodorus the Athenian; who flourished in the
second century a.D., late enough to safely include the whole
of classical mythology in his handy and very readable compendium.
Heyne published an excellent edition of this work, which contains
elaborate genealogies of gods, demigods, and heroes (2 vols.
sm. 8vo, 1782-3) and Thomas Gale collected in a rare (but un-
fortunately very incorrectly printed) volume, the works of Apollo-
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 81

dorus, and four other early mythologians, including the ‘‘ Transforma-
tions” of Antoninus Liberalis (cir. 150 a.D.). These Historie
Poetice Scriptores—8vo, London or Paris, 1675 (with copious
index)—are worth adding to our list. Theology, again, will be repre-
sented by the Bible, the Koran,! Augustine, the Sentences of
Petrus Lombardus,? and a few of the more conversational fathers,
of whom more anon. Next let us pass to rarer works, firstly
the series known as the Italian novelists, noting the editions
which it is desirable to secure. Almost a contemporary of
Boccacio is Sacchetti (2 vols. 8vo, 1724), and in the sixteenth century
appear quite a galaxy of famous collections, almost all of consider-

1 The Koran of Mahomet, it may here be observed, represents, according
to modern researches (see Gibbon, vol. VI., and the profusion of variorum
notes), a mere compilation, by the hysterical fanatic whose name it bears, of the
religious doctrines of the Arabians of the seventh century, edited in no par-
ticular order by his successor, Abu Bekr. The details of Arabian life and
manners, and the fictions, even the grotesque parodies and perversions, embodied
in the work give it a great historical and mythological value, in spite of the re-
volting artificiality of its style. ‘‘ All this stuff,” says the judicious Sale (who,
unlike certain modern Orientalists, is not altogether aésordenté by the intoxicating
jnfluence of “the East”) ‘‘ seems to be a confused recollection of the Beast in
Revelations” —a remark which many a Christian is moved to repeat, mutatis
mutandis, of other flowery passages in that tiresome imposture.

2 The classical ofus magnum of Pietro Lombardo (1100-1164), hight
*¢ Master of the Sentences,” a work said to have produced more commentaries
than any other known to history, is, as Hallam observes, a ‘‘magazine of arms”
drawn from the works of all the Fathers, for the use of scholastic disputants, a
compilation of immense labour, somewhat.in the form of a legal text-book. It
deals with such abstruse questions of theology as, where the Creator abode before
creation—whence Satan fell and how far—why Adam and Eve did not become
immortal, and why the latter was made from a rib—whether the Israelites were
guilty of theft in spoiling the Egyptians, &c., &c.

“*On all these points and points obscure as these,” among which lurk the germs
of many a later myth, we can only refer the reader to the copious indices appended
to the excellent edition et the ‘‘ Magistri Sententiarum Libri IV. 8vo. P.
Landry, Lugduni, 1594.” Peter the Lombard was Bishop of Paris, and an
appendix to the work contains a catalogue ae the opinions condemned during the
two following centuries by the authorities ‘‘in England and at Paris,”

G
82 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

able rarity, the Cento Novelle Antike (probably compiled in the
thirteenth century) 4to, Bologna, 1525; the better known (Vovel/e of
Bandello, of which three volumes appeared at Lucca in 1554, the
fourth at Lyons in 1573; and those of Nicolo Granucci, an extra-
ordinarily rare work, of which a fuller description may interest some
readers. It is curiously entitled—Di (Wicolao Granuca di Lucca
L’ Eremita, la Carcere e’l Diporto (Prison Diversions) ; opera nella
guale st contengono Novelle, et altre cose morali; con un breve com-
pendio de Fatti pit notabili de’ Turchi (Turkish history, manners,
and customs were at this date the subject of indefatigable curi-
osity), sé’ a tutto Panno 1566. Lucca: Busdraghi. 8vo, 1569. His
Piacevol Notte e lieto Giorno, opera morale (what the Renaissance
novelist did for morals it is difficult to estimate!) in Venezia : 8vo,
1574 (‘volume assez rare,” /ournier) is better known. Granucci
was born in 1530.

Next might follow the perhaps equally rare MVotti Piacevoli of
Straparola da Caravaggio (1550 and 1553), the common volume
of acetie edited by Domenichi and the rarer Recreations of
Ludovico Guicciardini, nephew of the great historian, which ap-
peared at Antwerp in 1585. Of the fifty stories of Giovanni
“Fiorentino,” published under the title of 77 Pecorone, Milan, 1558,
an edition described as “‘rarissimo,” the wretched counterfeit
dated “ Milano, 1554” (ze. Lucca, 1740) is to be avoided. The
Prima e Seconda Cena (with one story from the third) of Anton
Francesco Grazzini, // Zasca, may be purchased in the octavo edition,
London (¢.e. Paris) 1756. Last, but most indispensable, come the
Duecento Novelle, above mentioned, of Celio Malespini (2 parts in
t vol. 4to, Venice, 1609), a precious collection, which fetched £3 12s.
at the Pinelli sale. If we add two curious little duodecimo volumes,
the Facezte e buffonnerie del Gonnella e del Barlacchia e diversi,
Florence 1616, a decidedly out-of-the-way work, and Z’ Arcadia in
Brenta, ovvero la malinconia sbandita, Colonia 1667, this will do by
way of Italian literature for the present. The Aradian Nights’
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 83

Entertainments in twenty odd volumes, with copious index, will
please us then, the /ades of Bidpai, the Aztopadesa, and one or two
modern handbooks to Oriental literature.

The great Flemish satirical ‘‘ Beast-Epic” Reynard the Fox (Van
den Vos Reinaerde),! will often be useful for reference, in either of
the modern editions containing the original text.

To turn to our own country, there is one work of an absolutely
unique interest, and from which, in the words of a modern editor,
“all our great vernacular poets have drawn the materials for their
noblest works of fiction,” to wit, the celebrated Astoria Britonum,
composed or translated (from sources now lost or unknown) by
Geoffrey of Monmouth before the year 1147, and containing the
complete and orthodox legendary chronicle of Britain from A‘neas
to King Arthur, in what is apparently its most original accessible
form. ‘This work, of such immense popularity in the Middle Ages.
and upon which in our own days volumes have been and will
continue to be written, the reader will possess in Dr. Giles’s
useful edition, 8vo, 1844, which also includes the abridgment
by Ponticus Virunnius.?

But there is something almost sacrilegious in the suggestion that
any “bibliophile” would care to study this subject in a modern
text loosely covered with green cloth. We therefore proceed to
give him a selection of more artistically interesting “early printed”
repositories of anecdotes and fiction, which, since all the volumes

1 With the Latin Isengrimus, German versions, and kindred minor pieces, Ed.
Jacob Grimm. Berlin, 1834.

2 Published, together with the first edition of the Welsh Itinerary (1188 a.D.)
of Giraldus Cambrensis in a small 8vo, ap. Henr. Bollifantum, Londini, 1585
(edited by David Powell). My copy has the inscription ‘‘ J. H. Newman, given
by G. H. Exmouthiz, Aug. 1842.” The history of Merlin is contained in the
Historia Britonum, but the volume of ‘‘ Prophecies” published by Michel and
Wright in 1837, is assigned to another author. Geoffrey of Monmouth is
severely handled by his contemporary, William of Newburgh (d. 1208) : “‘ Gaufri-
dus hic dictus est, agnomen habens Arturi, quod fabulas de Arturo ex priscis
Britonum sermonibus sumptas, et ex proprio auctas,...historiz nomine palliavit.”

G 2
84 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

are worth having, and their typography will be found to assist an
appreciation of the medizval frame of mind, he should at once—
to save trouble—order of the nearest bookseller.

Any such a selection, to whatever length it be extended, must of
course begin with that unique storehouse of pious fiction, the
Golden Legend,! or, properly speaking, the Legenda Sanctorum,
aureum opus Jacobi de Varagine, a work, which from its nature, has
required constant re-editing to keep it upto date. Next would come
the Gesta Romanorum, cum applicationibus moralizatis, folio (cir.
1473); the Dyalogus Creaturarum moralizatus (and illustrated with
woodcuts), Goude, 1480, a work which reappears later under the
title Destructorium Vitiorum ; the Speculum Historiale, &c., &c., of
Vincent of Beauvais (ob. 1264)—in the fine edition by Mentelin of
Strasburg, fol. 1473,—a cumbrous volume within whose oaken iron-
bound doors, one cannot call them covers, lies a perfect storehouse of

1 This wondrous compilation, put together by the original author about 1290
A.D. (and called after him by an eighteenth-century critic, a ‘‘ vorago Fabularum”’),
was originally also known as the ‘‘ Historize Lombardicz,” a title which properly
belongs, as Fabricius points out, to the ‘‘ Life of S. Pelagius.” In the small folio
edition printed by Nicholas Petit (black letter, Lugduni, 1535) which lies before
us, the work is entitled ‘‘ Legenda—opus aureum, quod Legenda Sanctorum
vulgo nuncupatur,” &c., but the colophon is ‘‘ Explicit legenda aurea sive lom-
bardica histori(c)a.” The life of S. Pelagius forms ch. 177. The author takes it,
as he tells us, from the History of the Lombards of Paul Warnefrid (730-796
A.D.), where it will duly be found, De Gest’s Langobardorum, 8vo. Plantin, 1595
p- 95, &c. Legend 176 contains the history of Prince Josaphat and the monk
Barlaam, abridged from that of Joannes Damascenus. (v. Jost.)

The ‘‘ additions ” by subsequent editors comprise St. Lazarus, St. Anselm, St.
Louis, and St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom the first at least might, one would
think, have been mentioned before. After the Ascension, we here learn that the
persecuting Jews put Lazarus and his sisters and a number of other Christians into
a boat without oars. By Divine assistance, however, they succeeded in reaching
Marseilles, of which city the Saint became the first Bishop, bequeathing at his
death the usual quantity of relics.

The epithet ‘‘ golden” is, it need hardly be said, frequently applied, by authors
themselves, throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to describe what in
modern times would be called, as this certainly is, an ‘‘ indispensable” work.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 85

obscure and impossible medieval lore; and the Directorium vite
humane, fol. s.a. (1480) which is easier reading in the Latin transla-
tion than in the original Arabic—a work of unique importance, of
which a word shall be said presently. Scarcely less indispensable
would be the Speculum Exemplorum of Thomas, Cantimpratensis
(1200-1270) folio, Strasburg,'1487 ; and the Sevmones de tempore (or
occasional discourses) with the Promptuarium LExemplorum, com-
posed by the Dominican Herolt, about 1418, and published under
his zom de plume of “ Discipulus” in Nuremberg, 1475 (and else-
where 1481, 1484, &c.), and the extraordinarily rare Movellino of
Massuccio Salernitano (who wrote in the fifteenth century and in the
Neapolitan Dialect) which first appeared in{folio at Naples 1476, but
was reprinted some half-dozen times in: Italy alone before the close
of the century. The first edition is to be preferred. To conclude,
the last three works upon our little list shall be perhaps the most
famous, or singular of all: to wit the Astoria Alexandri magni
regis Macedonie de prehiis—a moderate-sized volume—first printed at
Cologne, 1480; the Book of St. Barlaam and of Josaphat King of
India (xst ed. cir. 1470) of which an Italian fifteenth-century textjwas
published by Bottari, 8vo, 1734; and the wondrous legend of the
“Seven wise men of Rome,” otherwise known as The Historia
Calumnia Novercalis—folio, 1475, a volumesby;common account, of
great attraction, although the White Knights copy only sold for
Alo 15s.

Of the substance of this last romance, an admirable specimen of
its kind, we may here add a word, premising that we draw it from
an Italian source, the Lzdvo de’ sette Savi.1 The framework of the
stories is familiar enough. The phenomenally clever youth instructed
by the seven sages is each morning rescued from execution (to
which his father the Emperor sentences him, at‘the instance of the
jealous young stepmother, whose amorous overtures he had re-

1 Printed from a fifteenth-century MS. in dialect, alla Libreria Dante, 8vo,
Florence, 1883.
86 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

jected) by a judicious apologue interposed by one of the wise men,
and, to balance this diversion, the wicked stepmother tells her royal
husband every evening a fable embodying an exactly opposite moral.
This ingenious mechanism, it will be seen, provides a sort of double
self-acting Arabian Nights’ (and Days’) entertainment, which but that
the number of wise men is limited, and that none were apparently
heard twice, might have revolved round the axis of one monotonous
situation for evermore, or at least as long as the central character,
the auditor, was simpie enough when confronted by the vaguest
precedent to go on inquiring “ How—or why was that?” It lasts a
week, which is quite enough, and then the wicked stepmother is burnt,
on which the reader feels a distinct sensation of relief. Through
the dim atmosphere of this confused fable the modern student
may discern as in a fog the uncertain outline of the remorseful
Llewellyn and the faithful Gelert, Joseph’s dream and reception of
his brethren in Egypt (?), and other less familiar legends. The oddest
thing in the book is perhaps the decision by the Pharaoh of one
narrative (assisted by the newly arrived Joseph, whose wisdom
enabled him of course to understand bird language) of an extremely
doubtful question in the law of divorce and maintenance (!) raised by
three crows who pestered the monarch, for what reason no one could
tell, until, upon the above explanation, he delivers a judgment
which they accept as final. The Italian is translated more or less
from an earlier Latin version (particles of which still adhere to the
“vulgar” text). Both this, and the variant of the thirteenth century
attributed to “‘ Dam Jehans” of the Abbey of Hauteselve, in which
the king is known as Dolopathos,! and Virgil is the principal wise
man, are translated or imitated, as authorities tell us, from the
Hebrew work known as the Parables of Sandebar (first published in

1 See Brunet and Montaiglon’s preface to Jannet’s ‘‘ Elzevirian”’ edition of
Zz vast and tiresome romans de Dolopathos, where the uncertain relations of
the Hest. of the Seven Sages, Dolopathos, and the Fables of Sandebar are discussed.
Inasmuch as the (so-called) Fables of Bidpaz have (in the opinion of some editors)
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 87

a collection, of opuscula, printed at Constantinople, gto, 1516, and
at Venice 1544, 1568, and 1605), and the said Parables are again
derived from a Persian translation or imitation of—and here we

reach the usual terminus of such research—an ‘‘ancient Indian
work.”

obtained a wider circulation than almost any known work, the following genea-
logical sketch of the principal imitations and translations may interest the reader.
ORIGINAL SANSKRIT.

The Pantcha-Tantrum, or ‘ Five Collections,” ed. Kosegarten, Bonn, 1848.
This, the earliest existing text, is said to be a ‘‘ second redaction.”

 

PEnvvy (z.e. Ancient Persian version) by Barzuyeh,
physician of Nuschirvan (6th century a.p.), with
additions and introduction, and entitled Fadles of °
Bidpat. (See Gibbon's Rome, V. 186, ed. 1872,

and editor’s note.)

Tue Hiropapgsa. A collection later
in date and more corrupted than
the Pehlvy version.

 

HeEsreEw. Attributed to the
Rabbi Joel, containing
two chapters not in the
*Calilah and D.” ‘Bid.
pai” is here metamor-
phosed into ‘‘ Sandebar” vy.

Silv. de Sacy.

AraBic VeERSION. By Abdallah Ibn
Almokaffa, gth century a.D., entitled
Calilah va Dimina (names of the two
interlocutors). Ed. Silv. de Sacy, 4to,
1816, Engl. by Knatchbull. Oxford, 1819.

 

[ |
Latin Version. By st (mod.) Persian SpanisH (!),  Util-

GREEK VERSION.
John of Capua VERSION. y ized by Raimond of By Simeon Seth,
(z3th century a.D.). Abou’! Maali Nasr _— Béziersinhis Latin cir. ro8r a.D.,
Sub. tit. Dzrector- Allah cir. 1137 A.D. _—-version,cir.r300a.D. _ translated in Sgecz-
tum Vite Hunt- men Sapientia vet.
ane. First printed Indorum, Beroli-
1480, and source of —————— ni, 1697.”
innumerable mod- 4

ern versions, ¢.g.

Dont. Filosofia mo-
rale (1552, 4to).

Sir E. Nortu’s VER-
sion. Reprinted,
ed. Jacobs, 1880.
Shakspeare, &c.

TurKISH VERSION. n )
duction of above, by Ali Tchelebi,
cir. 1540. Dedicated to Solyman the

2ND PERSIAN VERSION. Re-
cast ina modern and popular
form by Hosain baez Cas-
chefi, cir. 1530 A.D., in his
Anvari Sohaili, or ‘‘ Lights
of Canopus” (The Emir
“‘Sohaili” being compared
to the favourable star
Sohail=Canopus).

A mere repro-

Great. Sub. tit. Homayoun-Nanieh

|
Frencu. Of Galland and Cardonne:

“

Royal Book.”

Contes Indiennes de Bidpai, &c.
2 vols. 1724.

Pilpay.

3RD PERSIAN VERSION.
ByAbou'! Fazl.,1621 a.v.,
entitled Zyarvz Danisch

(Touchstone of
ledge).

London,
1775, W. plates.

Ow

Frencu. Of David of Ispahan, or
rather of Gilbert Gaulmin (
1665), Livre des Lumiéres des Rots.

1585-

Encuisu. Justructive, &c., Fables of
16—, 7th

ed.,
88 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

Similarly the “Directory of Human Life”? above mentioned is a
Latin translation by one John of Capua, also of the thirteenth
century, the genealogy of which is almost equally complicated. The
Greek text is drawn, through the Fables of Bidpai, from the early
Sanskrit “‘ Pantscha Tantrum,” or “ Five Collections,” the source of
the once ancient esteemed collection of Fables known as the
Hitopadesa, and indeed the well-spring of Fabular Fiction.

The reader who does not keep an original Divectorium, may per-
haps be able to lay his hands upon the Specimen Sapientie Indorum
liber ethico-politicus pervetustus—an edition of the Greek and Latin
together, published at Berlin, 8vo, 1697.

It will naturally be inferred that but few of the black letter folios
enumerated above represent original work. They are at best Latin
versions, for European circulation, of what thus became the popular
light literature distinguished by its more or less “improving” drift
and moral, from the merely idle romance of chivalry of the fifteenth
and even the sixteenth century.

The Vita et res geste S. Barlaam et Josaphat Indie Regis, above
mentioned, is a translation into the vulgar tongue probably made by
the Papal Librarian Anastasius in the ninth century, of the “‘ mystic”’
Greek romance, as Brunet describes it, attributed to the ascetic §.
John of Damascus (who died in 754 a.D.), and abridged, as has been
said, in the Golden Legend. This last-mentioned divine, the author
of a tract against the Iconoclasts (printed by Aldus in 1554) was a
wealthy and noble Christian holding high office under the Khalifate
at an early period in the development of Arabian literature.

‘East is East and West is West,” sings a modern bard, but the
rise of the Saracen power and the Mahometan invasion of Europe
represent, as far as concerns modern literature, the most distinct point
where “the twain do meet,” though how far the distinctive Oriental and
European imagination and taste, are ever capable of amalgamating is.
another question. Of the immense popularity of the works drawn from
such sources there can be no possible doubt. Their very strangeness.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 89

gave them a vogue. To take for example the Romance of Alex-
ander, to the subject of which we shall presently return,—of the Latin
_ text four fifteenth century editions are well known. Cologne, 1480 ;

““@ Albi, en Savoie,” 1480 ; Strasburg, 1486 and 1490. Of the French
translation ¢hree editions were printed at Geneva, 1492, 1494, and 1498,
one at Paris (n.d.) in 4to, and another undated 4to at Lyons, which
recently sold for nearly £20. A German edition ( “‘ Hienach voleet,
&<«.”) black letter Augsburg 1472, is described as extremely rare.
A Dutch version appeared in 1483. A Spanish 4to, 1530 and 1583.
Finally an English translation (of the first edition of which the
British Museum possesses only an imperfect copy) was printed by
Wynkyn de Worde, apparently in 1520, and by Copeland of Flete
Street, somewhere in the fifteen-fifties. Lastly, the romance appears
at Edinburgh in “‘Scottis meter,” 8vo, 1575 ;—and that, we trust, will
satisfy the reader. Of the ‘Seven Wise Men” and the “ Book of
Barlaam ” the editions are simply innumerable.

To return from the rehearsal of these prosaic details to our list of
‘hundred best books,” for the study of humane fiction in general.
Of French works perhaps too little has been said, but then so many
of them are well known. Besides the great satirical hotch-potch of
Rabelais—a work which invites an unlimited amount of learned
editing (though why any one should attempt to translate it into modern
English passes our comprehension)—there are two important original
collections of floating fact and figment to be mentioned (and curious
facts, it must be remembered, often repeat themselves in successive
ages), to wit, firstly, that great repository of sixteenth century scandal,
the Apologie d Herodote.1 A volume or two of the “free sermons,”
of which Estienne gives such entertaining extracts, may be thrown in ; 2

1 See note on p. 44.

2 Eig. Michel Menot’s Sermones Quadragesimales olim Turonis declamati, 8vo.
black letter, Paris, 1525. These discourses, in a jargon of French and Latin, are
highly entertaining, and throw some light upon the history of manners and morals.
Estienne, by the way, does not cite this volume (the Tours sermons), but those

preached at Paris—‘‘ volume moins rare ”—8vo, 1530.
‘go THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

and secondly, the still more singular but less serious production of
Beroalde de Verville, so ambitiously described as “Ze moyen de
parventr, ouvrage contenant la raison de tout ce gui a éte, et sera.”
Then if we add the Vuge venales, a little volume frequently reprinted
during the seventeenth century, and the Duc de Roquelaure’s
Roger Bontemps (1670), all the modern story (or fairy) books red,
blue, or green that we know, Dunlop's History of Fiction, Ducange’s
Glossary, and a couple of dozen other standard works of reference,
we might, in a leisurely fashion, get to work, at least upon some
of the less abstruse mythological exercises. One may, of course,
take up the research either in the middle (with M. Le Roux de
Lincy) or at one end, if it can be found, as is not always the case.

We are reminded of this when we approach that most famous of
all medizeval fictions—for their supremacy seems to be quite un-
questionable—the immortal Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. As is
the case with so many collections, their origin is provokingly obscure.
Perhaps, indeed, the extreme popularity of a work which is imitated
and translated by a score of hands, as soon as it is known, naturally
augments the difficulty of tracing the original.

The earliest mention of what is believed to be the “archetype” of
the Thousand and One Nights was discovered by the learned Von
Hammer, in the chronicle of a well-known Arabian historian writing
about the year 945. This author, whose names are too long to re-
hearse, in a casual reference (of which he can little have foreseen the
importance) to certain current stories of the time, remarks that
educated people looked upon them as mere inventions, “ “ke the
‘ Thousand Fanciful Tales?” }

The earliest history of Arabian literature (¢?7. 987 A.D.) assigns the
said work, which was regarded in the tenth century as a “corrupted
collection of silly (literally cold or tame) narratives” to a Persian

1 See the critical review appended to Lane’s English version of the ‘‘ Thousand
and One Nights.” Ed. E. Stanley Lane Poole. 3 vols. 8vo, 1883.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. gt

origin. .4z Arabian version existed as early as the twelfth or thir-
teenth century; and it seems to be agreed that the work, as we
know it, isan Arabic compilation, made and augmented at various
dates from perhaps the tenth or eleventh up to the sixteenth century,
and chiefly in Egypt, for while the fame of Haroun El Raschid, to
whose reign most of the stories purport to refer, extended far from
Bagdad, all the MSS. contain frequent and exact descriptions of
Cairo. Ina word, the Thousand and One Nights is, modern com-
mentators tell us, “fas much an Arabian work as Virgil’s 4neid is a
Latin.”

Their original source, or sources, it is in most cases impossible now
to discover or disentangle. The task might literally in judicious,
that is, in sufficiently learned, hands

‘‘ Extend from here to Mesopotamy ”

and embrace, as Von Hammer remarks, even Homer himself in an
early Syriac version. But then Homer, we know, in spite of Mr.
Andrew Lang, was himself probably “put together” from earlier
materials in the eighth century B.c., and who really wrote him no one
precisely knows. How far, then, must the wearied student look
backwards for finality? Scarcely, it seems, shall he find it in
the grand simplicity and primeeval calm of a Vedic hymn !

But to take up the matter (of the Arabian Wights) from its other
chronological end, no existing text is known to be earlier than 1548,
the date which chanced to be inscribed upon the imperfect MS. from
which Galland worked, which MS. by the way does not contain
eleven of the most famous of the tales, including “Aladdin and
the Wonderful Lamp,” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” It
was never discovered until the other day, after near two centuries ‘of
doubt, wonder, and suspicion, z/ence Galland had obtained these,
and all that we now know, from an entry (March 25, 1709) in the
translator’s journal recently unearthed (1888) in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, is that he derived the eleven tales from one “ Hanna,
92 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

a Maronite of Aleppo.” But who was Hanna? and where did he
get them? No one seems to know. Such are some of the broken
threads which make up the vast tangle of comparative mythology.

The delightful French version of Galland (first published 1704—
1717) many of us know and love better than later and completer
editions. Indeed the dimensions of the great Burton translation! are
almost terrifying; they recall too realistically the original concep-
tion of an endless serial which never stopped even with a Christ-
mas number. ‘“ Halfhours” of light fiction pass very well, but
who can face “Ten Hundred Sleepless Nights with the Best
Authors” ??

Incomplete is a mild expression for the first instalment of the
Tales, which embraced, as the translator himself tells us, only one
thirty-sixth part of the stupendous whole. Yet Galland, though a
deliberately loose translator, in the opinion of many good critics,
really improved on his original by the omission of many of those
ornamental absurdities which jar upon a European ear. Arabian
fiction has been said to be characterised by a certain “coarse broad
humour, and a terrible and gigantic sublimity,” which inevitably
trenches now and then on the ridiculous.2 Moreover a certain

1 A new and but slightly abridged ‘‘ Library” edition is now announced in
twelve volumes at the price of £6 6s., of which critics seems to agree that it will
probably be quite ‘‘ complete” enough for the average reader of moderate means,
and rather too much so for the subscribers to the original extra-complete and
curiously annotated Burtonian text, of which it might well have taken the place.

2 «<Frappée de la clarté du jour qui commencait 4 paraitre Scherazade ne dit
pas davantage.” fille & une nutts, passim,

3 See a most interesting work (cited repeatedly by Lane), Remarks on the
Arabian Nights, the origin of Sindbad’s Voyages, &c., by Richard Hole, LL.B.
8vo. Cadell, 1797. ‘‘ An excellent little book ” (Lowndes), which figured in the
Fonthill and other catalogues. ‘‘ Ouvrage fort bien fait,” adds Brunet, ‘‘ et qu’on.
ne retrouve plus facilement.” (A@éme dans la boite & six souts ot nous vinons de
le déterrer.) In this volume the relation of Sindbad’s adventures to the actual ex-
periences (and erroneous inferences) recorded by European and Oriental explorers
of India, China, and Japan, and to the professed fictions of earlier classic writers.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 93

artificiality of form, and in particular a passion for reasoning by
way of question and answer—as the reader will presently see—serve
to identify the genus.

But it is rash to dogmatise from such sensations, in regard to any
particular episode or story. To tear off the original environment of
the hero, and to clothe him in bran new vestments of another place
and time is, to an able mythologist, the work of a moment. ‘Thus,
to return to Antoine Galland, who, besides the Jdz/le e¢ Une Nuit(s),
the Contes Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman (2 vols. 8vo, 1724), and
other works, also published a celebrated collection of Anecdotes and
Maxims,? one would never have guessed that perhaps the most
familiar of all British schoolboy anecdotes—that, to wit, of the

is discussed with considerable learning. Sindbad is of course frequently in accord
with Marco Polo and other travellers. Lucian, in the second century a.D. had
already produced a rival to the Roc ‘as big as twenty vultures” (Vera Historia,
Bk. ii.). The ‘‘Old Man of ¢he Sea” (a mistaken address) is really a well-ascer-
tained Ourang-outan; and Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled late in the twelfth
century, either borrowed from or furnished to Sindbad his method of escaping, dy
the assistance of an Eagle, from the Valley of Diamonds. (v. Bem. Tudelens’s
itinerarum. 8vo, Antwerp, 1575, p. 98.)

1 Orientaliana ou les Bons Mots des Orientaux, &c., selected from various
original sources, including unpublished MSS., with copious notes and index,
8vo, Paris, 1701. The story of the inquisitive man is on p. 35. The work first
appeared under another title, ‘‘ Paroles Remarquables,”. &c., in 1694, and an
English translation in 1695. The volume contains a great deal which is historically
interesting in a very readable form, but it must be admitted that the stories are
not as a rule what would now be called amusing. A son and heir is asked if he
wishes his father would die. ‘‘ No,” he answers, ‘‘I wish some one would kill
him, that I might have the blood-money as well as the inheritance.” Quel 60 mot!
A Persian poet reads his second-rate verses to a person of taste. ‘They were
composed on the spot,” he urges. ‘‘I should think so,” answers the critic, ‘they
smell of it.” (Nothing is said of the insanitary nature of their subject.) Quelle
plaisanterte! The stories mostly break off—they can hardly be said to conclude—
with the rudest and inanest of platitudes. Some are mildly amusing, such as the
answer made to the proud author of a poem in which the letter Aleph had never
been used : ‘* Why not omit all the others?” The majority reflect a strange and
to most temperaments somewhat uncongenial frame of mind.
94 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

inquisitive Irishman who looks over the shoulder of a gentleman
writing a letter, and by an indignant denial of the reflection therein
made upon his impertinent curiosity, inadvertently convicts himself
—was to be found in such a work, from which, however, we have
doubtless borrowed it.

With regard to fiction in general, in spite of the maxim that
there is nothing new under the sun, competition seems to run dis-
tinctly in the direction of antiquity, and “latest authorities” are
commonly employed in knocking century after century off the
age which certain classic works have successfully claimed in less
critical days.

Associating, as one inevitably does, a certain rude vigour with a
quite ‘“ primitive ” antiquity, probably many readers are surprised to
find that the mythological Eddas as we know them, for example the
ballads first popularised by Gray,! are only to be assigned to about
the same date as the “silly and corrupted narratives” of the Ara-
bian Nights. The question is, of course, one of independent and
very diverse racial developments. At the date of the genesis of
the Eddas, the Northmen, as we have good reason to know, carried
all before them, and bullied the feeble and struggling infancy of the
France and Europe of the dark ages. But (up to and of course

1 Now easily obtainable in Dr. Finnur Jéonsson’s edition of the Gedichte Mytho-
logischen Inhalt’s (text, critical notes, and glossary). 8vo, Halle, 1888. See p. 69.
The oldest MS. of the Eddas dates from about 1250. Snorro Sturleson’s work
was published by Rask in 1818.

In Gray’s time the Eddas seem to have been accessible only in the chronicle of
Torfeeus, and in the valuable and somewhat rare mélanges of T. Bartholinus—
“ Antiquitates Danice—de causis contempta a Danis adhuc gentilibus mortis,”
with engravings, 4to, Hafiniz, 1689, from which Gray’s translation (or rather
imitation of the Latin translation there given) was made. The editor of the
Poems (Scatcherds’ ed., with portrait and front. by Burney, 8vo, 1779) wonders
why Gray omitted the first five stanzas of Odin’s Ride. Probably because Bar-
tholinus does not give them. The “‘ Antiquities” include a large selection from
unpublished texts, and should be added to the jlist of useful books above-
mentioned.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 95:

excluding Mr. Henrik Ibsen) what have they since produced that
rings in our ears like the last lines of Odin’s ride? The secondary
and artificial period sets in with the prose Edda attributed to Snorro
Sturleson (1178-1218). “‘ Dabord le chant,” as M. Xavier Marmier
puts the matter, ‘et puzs /’analyse.” 1

The Arabian Nights in which, as has often been remarked, there
is hardly any mention of war, is the expression of an already corrupt
and, indeed, as we now know, a profligately immoral civilisation.
Not a trace of Saracen vigour is to be perceived in the luxurious and
enervated ‘‘ mercantile” society from which its characters are drawn.
The fiction, for a work of what Europeans call the dark ages, pre-
sents to us quite a surprisingly modern and conventional artificiality.
But the utter dearth of moral and spiritual energy makes this society
more trying, in a sense, more puzzling to the modern, or at least to.
the Teutonic mind than the violence of Odin and Thor, or the
mysticism of an A®schylean chorus. These things seem to us to
correspond to something either in the forces of nature, or in our own
intelligence or aspirations. But the Oriental imagination (which for
this if for no other reason we can hardly expect to understand) ? is

1 Lettres sur I Islande, 1837, containing an excellent abridgment of Scandi-
navian mythology.

2 But if in the best known Oriental literature there are aphorisms and witticisms
and rhetorical ornaments of which we do not appreciate the point or force, that is
but a natural and trifling uncongeniality. For genuine medizval obscurity, nay,
for blank head-splitting unintelligibility, we need look no further than the nearest
Celtic chef d’auvre of the dark ages. Take for example Dallan Forgaill’s cele-
brated elegy in praise of St. Colomb (Amra Choluim Chilli, &c., edited from the
MS., with literal translation and notes, by J. O’B. Crowe, Dublin, 1871) composed
late in the sixth century.

“* He cried,” sings the poet](c. 21), ‘‘a melodious lion in u snow’s new meet-
ing” ; and then follows the explanation (infinitely more trying in each case than
the text): ‘‘ Like the roar of a melodious lion in snow in a new meeting is the
praise of the strong one, that is, Colum Cille ; for when the lion gives his roar out
of him, all the animals come at it until he gives a cowl of his tail around them, so
that there die in that place a flock of rats and of foxes (!). The hunter comes to
96 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

distinguished, as a French critic observes, “by an abuse of the im-
agination and intellect” and a contempt of “ nature.”

To trace the kinship between the North and the East, we must
in fact go back to the literature of early India. Take, for example,
the immensely striking idea of the “ Churning of the Ocean, in order
to recover Amrit, the lost drink of Immortality,” which occurs in that
colossal epic the Mahabhdrata,! and is probably seven or eight
centuries older than the Eddas, which it at once recalls.

him then until he gives nets about him afterwards, so that he dies. Thus Colum
Cille.” We trust the reader follows the analogy. ‘‘ Dignity of mind,” we read
elsewhere, ‘‘ came for the cleric.” Such language, which is no obscure jest of the
translator’s, sounds like something out of the Star newspaper (1894), and brings
a stifling crowd of burlesque associations about the reader’s brain. ‘‘ Thou hast
leave,” says the cleric, ‘‘to Je on a craneing on which thou art.” ‘Thou hast leave,”
says the cleric, ‘“‘to be on a craneing” (séc)—so that it is then she ‘‘ was turned
into a crane”! And Englishmen wonder that they cannot understand the people
whose ancestors, to the number of many hundreds (see Forespeech), wrote such
poetry as this, until—and here a ray of comprehension dawns upon us—they
were ‘‘ banished for their burdensomeness.” The Life of St. Patrick in the Book
of Armagh (Irish Antig. Researches, Dublin, 1827) is far more readable fiction.

1 A lucid analysis of the two great epics, the Mahabhdrata (which contains
100,000 stanzas) and the Ramayana, will be found in ch. 1 of Marshman’s History
of India. These stupendous works, composed a century or so before Christ, and
referring to events—the careers respectively of Krishnu and Ramu—of about
1,000 years earlier, may shortly be said to embody all the earliest traditions of
India (thickly overlaid, especially in the case of the Ramayun, with supernatural
mythology and Brahministic doctrine), and to be the sole sources of Indian History
before the Mahometan invasion. The earliest literature of India is now ac-
cessible in Prof. Max Miiller’s Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1879, &c.,
translated by various Oriental scholars. The Hymns of the Rig-Veda, ‘‘ the most
ancient literary monument of our Aryan race,” of which the existing text dates
Srom the sixth century B.C., have just been published in English with » popular
commentary (Benares, Lazarus, 1894. See Atheneum, No. 3502) by Mr. Ralph
Griffith, the translator of the Ramayun, whose ‘‘Specimens of Old Indian
Poetry” (produced so long ago as 1852) contain selections from the Vedic Hymns,
the larger poems, and the Law of Manu, in a convenient form. The Questions of
King Milinda, a work of great importance, and a cardinal text on Buddhism, is
translated, in the series above-mentioned, by T. W. Rhys Davids, Oxford, 1890.
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH. 97

In fact the golden age of Sanskrit literature, so much of which has
of late years been brought within reach of all English readers, appears
to coincide with the beginning of the Christian era, and what is
described as the only artistic prose work of ancient India—the
Questions of King Milinda (i.e. it is supposed, “ AMenander, one
of the kings who carried on in Bactria, the Greek dominion
of Alexander the Great”) was composed about that date, and
conveys the didactic ethics of its age in the form of a historical
romance.

Apart, however, from rude and vast primitive fancies bearing the
stamp of “ancientry,” scores and hundreds of simple stories of
human and animal life, more or less ethically applied in the
example, as the Spanish call it, or fable, are, beyond doubt, of
great antiquity, though it is not always traceable, and the num-
ber of these imported at one date or another from the East is
enormous.

Pour “passer au deluge,” to omit that is the common stock
of simple (and largely agricultural) ideas which the “ Indo-Euro-
pean group” inherit from their parent race an early Oriental
idea may arrive at the modern English reader either by the main
line, so to speak, through Greek, Latin, and Italian, or French ; or
indirectly, as will be seen presently, by a more or less tortuous Aryan
or Semitic route. Again an incident or fancy traceable to an Arabian
source (whether original or borrowed from India) may have been
indirectly imported through Byzantine Greek or late Latin in the
Middle Ages, or directly during either the Moorish invasion of
Europe, or the European crusades into Palestine.

From the catalogue above suggested—the outlines of which the
intelligent ‘reader can fill in for himself—it will be seen that an
adequate Library of Fiction, properly indexed, should enable him to
stop or tap any given figment, by whatever route or channel it
approaches or departs, and whether it be a complex chapter in some
elaborate “cycle,” or the simplest human incident, of obvious

H
98 THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH.

‘moral,’ and world-wide application. Thus to take the common-
place story (cited by Richard Hole from Beloe’s Miscellany) of The
Man (it should be “two men”), ¢he Lion, and the Serpent, which is
apparently foreign, but affords no exact evidence of date, one might
easily speculate as to when it was imported. As it happens, how-
ever, we know that it came in in the twelfth century, since the
whole story is printed at length in Matthew Paris. That author—
who, by the way, has a good deal to say about the “ Fables” of the
heretic Mahomet—tells us (sd anno 1195, on page 241 of the folio
edition of 1570, cited above) that Richard Cceur de Lion, who it is.
presumed brought the legend home from the Crusades, used to
repeat it to his courtiers to enforce the moral of gratitude to
benefactors.

The tale is not a striking one, but reads comically in the Latin
of St. Alban’s. The King’s real object was to persuade more of
his courtiers, and especially those upon whom he had conferred
honours, to take service in the Crusade demanded by Pope Celes-
tine III. With this aim he himself “turned preacher,” and taking
up his ‘“‘ parable” told the company of one Vitalis, a wealthy Vene-
tian, who one day wandering in a wood fell into a pit artfully prepared
for lions and serpents, and indeed already occupied by two of those
intelligent animals, who, however, as Vitalis “fortified himself with
the sign of the Cross,” allow him unmolested to “howl and yell”
for a day and a night. Then arrives on the scene a poor charcoal-
burner, who, on a promise of half the rich man’s fortune (500 talents).
rescues him and also the lion, which plays about and wags its tail,
and the snake, which “squirms” and “hisses softly” with delight.
The lion subsequently brings the poor man a kid, and the serpent
finds him a precious gem ; but the wealthy Vitalis, on his safe return
to Venice, forgetful of solemn oaths and promises, declines to pay.
The charcoal-burner insists on having the law of him, produces the
gem, and conducts witnesses to a personal interview with the lion
and the snake, whose exhibition of delight, though clearly only evi-
THE HUNTING OF THE MYTH 99

dence against the beasts themselves, satisfies the judges of the truth
of the whole story !

Thus King Richard, by way of reflection upon the ungrateful. It
may be presumed that some of the “‘circumsedentes,” who knew
nothing of comparative mythology, must at once have handed in their
names as volunteers. The parable was already at least 300 years
old, being drawn from that inexhaustible Oriental source, the
Calilah va Dimnah, alias the Fables of Bidpai, or Sandebar

Under the title of Zhe Story of Bardus the Fagot Gatherer, it was
popularised by Gower (Book V., Avarice, chap. 6, /ngratitude), and
duly re-appears in the Gesta Romanorum.

1 See note to p. 86.

 

 

 

 

 

Woodcut from the Dyalogus creaturarum, printed by Gerard Leeu. Gouda. 1480. (Brit.
Mus. C. 38, h. 3.) The typography and illustrations of this famous volume are of peculiar
excellence.

H 2
I].—AN IMPROVING WORK.

I] LRONOLOGICALLY and _ naturally enough the
mention of Richard I. suggests the subject of a
certain chef d’euvre which we had intended shortly
to review, after concluding the above prefatory re-
marks, and which seems never to have been printed
in complete form until the present century, though it may very
possibly have been read by Cceur de Lion, or have served to distract
the mind of the suffering King John.

The Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, bap-
tized in the year 1106, at the age of forty-four, is one of the most
famous collections of its kind. Under another name (and especially
under that of the French version, Le Castoiement d’un Pere & son
Fils, published by Barbazan in 1760) this pious composition is well
known to every student of early modern literature. In fact the notes
and cross references appended by the learned F. W. V. Schmidt to
his edition of the Latin text (8vo, Berlin, 1827) seem to embrace
the whole literature of medizval thought, to say nothing of the fiction
of some twenty centuries. From Aristophanes to Hans Sachs, from
Eginhard to Muratori, all the past is laid under contribution by an
editor, who, not content with printed books, quotes long passages
from priceless and out of the way manuscripts, and Greek transla-
tions of obscurer Ethiopian originals.

1 The celebrated and highly apocryphal Book of Enoch, which has been since
published (3rd ed. revised and enlarged, Oxford, 1838; translated from the

 
AN IMPROVING WORK. 10}

To the unprejudiced reader the expression Drsaplina Clericalis is
at first sight an unattractive title, no more suggestive of a mine of
anecdote than is A Lover's Confession. Looked into more closely
we see that it only means the education, religious as well as intellec-
tual, of a gentleman and a scholar, at a period when this was not such
a serious business as it is now-a-days.

But it was no simple matter even then. ‘There are,” we read
(chap. vi. 6), “seven arts, seven probities (Jrodctates), and seven
industries. The seven arts are dialectic, arithmetic, geometry,
physics, music, astronomy; adout the seventh philosophers differ ;
some say that it is ‘science,’ some ‘grammar,’ which one would
have thought, as literature is not mentioned at all, would have come
before the other six.

‘“« The seven prowesses are riding, swimming, shooting with the bow,
boxing, fowling, playing chess (!), and writing verses.

‘The industries (¢.e. virtues, and no such bad name for them,) are
not to be greedy, drunken, luxurious, violent, mendacious, avaricious.”

The mastery of chess may be a prowess, but it seems strange that
“versification ” should go in the same class with boxing.

In that precious monument of typography, the Summa que vocatur
Catholicon of Joannes de Janua (alias Giovanni Balbi, ob. 1298), the
“seven arts” of medizval education are more methodically and,
sensibly defined. 1. The Zviviwm (a triple road to eloquence)
grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. 1. The Quadrivium (the fourfold
road to wisdom), arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. Those
who took up No. 1 were called “ Triviales,” those who preferred the
second “ Quadriviales.’”’ “ Trivialis” is, of course, quite independent
in meaning, though not in origin, of “trivial,” nor can we posi-
tively describe the “trivials” as a sort of “poll”-men, though they

Ethiopian MS. in the Bodleian Library by Archbishop Lawrence) is a unique
source of history upon the period immediately preceding the Deluge, an account
of which by Noah (who, according to Tertullian, at least revised the work)
occupies chapters 64 to 67.
102 AN IMPROVING WORK.

obviously would fall into an inferior class. Gregory of Tours, in the
sixth century, alludes to these seven branches of learning, in the
celebrated Apology for his own defective style appended to the
Flistoria Francorum, and incidentally explains that Aeforzc meant a
mere knowledge of metres, and Matthew Paris, seven hundred years
later, speaks of an educated man as one “iz ¢rivio et quadrivio ex-
cellentissimus.”

To return to the Disciplina Clericalis. We are clearly informed
how and why Petrus Alfonsus wrote the work. The Almighty had
endowed him “ with manifold wisdom,” which he did not think it
right “to hide under a bushel.” But considering the frailty of human
nature, he had endeavoured to convey his instructions in an enter-
taining and not too tedious form. ‘ Accordingly,” he tells us, “I
have compiled this little book partly from the proverbs of philoso-
phers and their counsels (castigationes), partly from Arabian proverbs
and counsels, and fables and verses, partly from similitudes of beasts
and birds. In fact there would seem to be very little really original
matter in the book. The greater part is either purely Oriental, or
what has filtered through some Eastern channel from an earlier
European source.

All that is strangest in incident in early European fiction, we
are disposed to assign, by virtue of that uncongeniality which has
been discussed already, to an Oriental origin. On the other hand,
the “ medizval mind ” is itself a strange thing which requires some
understanding ; a childish intelligence, it often seems, darkened by
suffering, and deranged by moral and intellectual disease, yet with
intervals of singular and sometimes hysterical mirth—little more
intelligible to us than its terribly materialist attempts to pigeon-hole
all human intelligence, and its verbose confusions of names, numbers,
and things.

Thus the stories of the pious Petrus Alfonsus interest us chiefly
as part of the history of civilisation, and are mostly, as we say, “in
an atmosphere.” In the first place, and in spite of the author’s
AN IMPROVING WORK. 103

assurances, their subject-matter hardly strikes one as moral. Like
most other medizeval fictions, they treat very largely of the infidelity
of the fair sex, a subject popular with Boccacio, and hardly yet
exhausted ; and in the second place, while giving unquestionable
advice they darken counsel strangely. Familiar characters appear,
but pursue their ends in an oddly d/asé or topsy-turvy manner. The
most celebrated personages of antiquity come upon the scene, yet
somehow they are not quite as we remember them.

Virgil, the poet and the country gentleman, is an individual of
whom we naturally feel that we know something. Yet his character
passed very early into the realm of the supernatural, being almost
worshipped, if only as a genius, soon after his death. Perhaps he
would never have sung of magic, and charms potent

coelo deducere lunam (Bucolics, Ecl. 8),

and would even have denied Eneas the pleasure of a visit to the
infernal regions, could he have foreseen how such diversions would
be misunderstood by subsequent generations. At any rate Virgilius,
schoolmaster, necromancer, and mesmerist—Virgilius the wooer of
the “Sodan’s daughter of Babylone,” the builder of Naples on a
foundation of eggs, the inventor of innumerable and highly dan-
gerous automatic toys, including the wondrous ‘“‘coper man and
horse” (the historic if not etymological equivalent of the modern
“‘copper”), which kept the streets of Rome from “theues and
nyght-ronners ”——this Virgil is perhaps the most refreshingly novel
and entertaining figure in the whole world of fiction, especially in the
English text ‘‘emprynted in the cytie of Antwarpe,” with woodcuts,
by John Doesborcke.?

But the conduct of Aristotle is more seriously trying to the
unsuspicious modern student.

He leaves the venerable Stagirite gravely discoursing of the
“excess” and “defect” of dignity (‘‘ hightonedness,” as Americans

1 One copy known, from which Utterson reproduced sixty in 1812, all presumably
** well held” at the present date.
104 AN IMPROVING WORK.

perhaps translate it) and such virtues, or asserting, with ever so little
of a grin, that it was ridiculous to talk about courage “at sea.”
Returning late in the Christian era he discovers the philosopher
—to his horror !—saddled and bridled, capering skittishly about
an Oriental garden with a young lady in scanty clothing, the mistress
of Alexander, upon his back! To the cultivated mind this is a
severe shock. ‘The learned Pope Pius II., better known as Afneas
Sylvius, took it seriously to heart. ‘‘ What are we to say of philo-
sophers,” he asks, “‘when they do such things?” What, indeed ?
But we soon find out that it is not Aristotle’s fault at all, since
Aristotle, and, for that matter, Alexander the Great and Socrates, and
Virgil, and Joseph of Arimathzea, and numerous other celebrated
individuals? are only, as Mr. Lewis Carroll might put it, “persons
in the dream” of the medizeval mythologer.

As the editor of the Déscip/ina explains in a lucid and interesting
note, there are in fact—in myth rather-—if the startled reader can
believe it, no less than ¢ivee Aristotles.

For firstly, there is the ‘here altogether to one side laid”
Aristotle of History, who died in 322 B.c., and upon whose works—
which are nearer akin to the modern mind than any medizval
lucubrations—our university professors continue to lecture.

The second is the corrupted and perverted Aristotle celebrated in
the literature of his time, as the fountain head of ‘Scholastic ’”
Philosophy and Theology, in the form in which he appears from the
time of Boethius (say 500 a.D.), but who only takes a definite
position in the Christian literature of Western Europe through

1 The “ Lyfe of Virgilius” (a fiction of Itaiian origin) will be found in the
admirable selection of ‘‘ Early Prose Romances,” edited by Prof. Morley (Zozz-
ledge’s Carisbrooke Library, No. IV.), who points out its relation to the ‘‘ Seven
Sages.” Of ‘Joseph of Arimathie or the Romance of the Holy Grail,” an
“absolutely unknown poetical version,” and others printed in the sixteenth
century, were published by Skeat (Early Eng. Text Society), 1871. On the vast
and obscure subject of the Saint-greal, see a very learned work recently published
by Mr. Alfred Nutt.
AN IMPROVING WORK. 105

Arabian translations, and corruptions of his works! Thus the con-
ventional attitude of the medizeval mind towards the great philosopher
is strongly affected both by ignorance and prejudice—as may be in.
ferred, indeed from the allusion in Hans Rosenpliit’s Play of the
Seven Masters, or wise men, composed about 1450;

** Hie vindt man /oyca mit irer list”
(Logic, that is, and its cunning)

‘* Die lert was falsch und unrecht ist

Ir meister heisst Aristotiles.”
Poor man !

His third impersonation—and the one with which we are here
concerned—is the purely mythical Aristotle evolved by the Oriental
imagination out of Jewish and Arabian traditions, and made the
subject—one cannot say the hero—of various strange tales.

Of these, the most famous is that embodied in the French
Fabliau (see the collections of Barbazan? and Le Grand d’Aussy)
and entitled in the former Ze Lay ad Aristote, in which the philoso-
pher, having warned the youthful Alexander against the excessive and
degrading servitude of love, is himself subsequently victimised by the
fair charmer and exposed to the ridicule of the conqueror of the
world in the painfully absurd position above mentioned.

1 Cf Hegel, Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. 1844, iii. 119. The historical
interest of the Arabian acquaintance with and predilection for the works of
Aristotle lies in the fact that for many centuries ‘‘all that the Western world knew
of him was derived through this channel ’—that is, through Arabian versions, se-
lections, and commentaries, some of which were but vaguely related to the original
—re-translated into Latin (with sometimes a Hebrew version between the two) by
Spanish Arabs and Jews in Africa, Spain, or Portugal. During the early Middle
Ages the study of Greek was, it will be remembered, a/most unknown in Christian
Europe. Very few writers of the time have a first-hand acquaintance even with
Homer. As their philosophy was for long drawn from Arabian sources, so their
Greek mythology was almost exclusively derived from Ovid and his low Latin
imitators.

2 Fabliaux & Contes des povtes Francois des 12°, 13°, & 14° Siécles (original
texts and glossary), 3 vols., sm. 8vo (or rather 18mo large paper, well printed
in good-sized type). Paris, 1756. See vol. i., 155.
106 AN IMPROVING WORK.

It is obvious that ninety-nine hundredths of this story which, though
once so popular, would hardly amuse the present generation, is
Oriental fancy.

A Bishop of Ptolemais who spent the closing years of his life at
Rome, Jacobus de Vitriaco, imported the fiction into Europe early in
the thirteenth century in his famous Astoria Orientalis et Occiden-
talis. It enforces a moral concerning women in Herolt’s Promptu-
arium Exemplorum, mentioned above. A French author works it
up, as we have seen, into a lengthy Fadzau, and Hans Sachs into a
comedy (of the year 1554)—Persons, the Queen rides the philosopher
Aristotle, and has five acts.

From Aristotle we naturally turn to his distinguished pupil.

That a strange and rich web of fiction should weave itself about
the name of Alexander the Great was natural enough. The real
magnitude, and the distance from Europe, of so many of his exploits
(which recalls Mr. Hume’s argument concerning miracles) rendered
such a result inevitable, human nature being what it is. ‘‘ Alexander
died,” as Hamlet tells us, ‘‘ Alexander was buried” about the year
323 Bc. But the first real history of his astonishing expeditions—and
a most excellent and readable one it is—which has come down to us
is that of Arrian, the Nicomedian, who was Governor of Cappadocia
In 134 A.D.

Arrian is a most conscientious writer ; and while he pins his faith
to the two contemporary historians (Ptolemy and Aristobulus) where
they agree, he is constrained to observe upon the remarkable differ-
ences in the various accounts given of the life of his hero.

‘These things I mention,” he tells us at the close of a chapter
(vil. 27) containing various traditions as to Alexander's death,
“rather that I may not appear to be ignorant of what is commonly re-
ported, than because I think them worthy of credit.” But we may
be sure that many of his readers, and many writers of bad Greek or
‘infamous Latin” failed to note the distinction.

What could be expected then, when Quintus Curtius, a rhetorician
AN IMPROVING WORK 107

with a decided taste for the romantic, and imperfectly acquainted
with Greek, takes up the tale, at an uncertain date in the first or
second century? He refers indeed to “authorities ”’ (which include
already at least one romancer, Clitarchus), but, having a lofty con-
tempt for chronology, repeats their diverse accounts of identical
events “‘as if they referred to different things,” a practice leading to
confusion.

The modern German editor can discover ‘‘only three passages
where he attempts to distinguish truth from falsehood.” The dread-
ful result of all this being that Quintus Curtius, although a trifle
flowery, produced, at this shockingly early date, what has been
described as a ‘‘readable historical novel,” which had undoubtedly
an immense, nay, a fatal vogue. Any one can understand this who
will take the trouble to turn tu his capital chapters on the conspiracy
of Hermolaus, and the death of Callisthenes the friend and biographer !
of the monarch. A modern demagogue addressing a “capitalist”
could not speak with greater frankness and prolixity than the un-
fortunate page expounding the attitude of an aggrieved military
employé towards the despotic conqueror of the world. (Q.C. viii. 6-9).

The author indeed says elsewhere when relating wonders which
Strabo, Zlian, Plutarch, and Pliny merely state as facts, “‘I trans-
cribe more than I believe” (De rebus gestis Alexandri, ix. 1); which
shows that, in spite of what has been said, some feeling for history
still hung about him. Pausanias felt the same difficulty, and the

1 Callisthenes, the nephew and disciple of Aristotle, was put to death by
Alexander in Bactria, 328 (see Arrian, iv. 13), for his supposed connection with
the conspiracy to murder Alexander in bed, which was only defeated by that
monarch’s fancy for sitting up all night

“drinking, drinking, drinking.”
Callisthenes perished, but his ghost walked many centuries later, and the pseudo-
Callisthenes furnished materials for almost all the later histories of Alexander,
except, it would seem, the Irish version, which, like the Irish Odyssey, appears to
be an ‘‘original compilation.” See notes to Kuno Meyer’s edition (and literal
translations) of these works. (D. Nutt, 1886.)
108 AN IMPROVING WORK.

same obligation to posterity. In the true Middle Ages, the question
how much a writer or reader could believe soon became immaterial.
The first medizeval writer on the subject would seem to be Gaultier

de Chastillon who, about 1180 composed a passable epic poem, the
Alexandreis (8vo, 1541) in ten books, beginning

Gesta ducis Macedum totum digesta per orbem

Quam large dispersit opes, quo milite Porum

Vicerit et Darium, &c., &c.

Musa, refer.
in which one only observes a slight deficiency of “ear,” and of
grammar. But Gaultier whose work was in the thirteenth century
preferred to the ancient classics, descends in a later passage to a
miserable “play po’ words,” writing

Forte Fortune pereo, si pareo ; mentem
Non sinit insontem fortuna potentior esse.

Nor does he scruple at an atrocious pun.
Heee seca manet, in me parat illa secarim.

Since then various poets have descanted in vulgar tongues upon
the theme. Before the close of the twelfth century, Alexander of
Paris became joint author of another famous epic (in lines of twelve.
feet, “hence called Alexandrines,” but after which Alexander it seems
doubtful), recounting the “ gestes ” of the Macedonian monarch, lightly
flavoured with early French history. The most celebrated of all
these works is the immense “Poema de Alexandro” in 2,514
four line rhyming stanzas (‘“‘ Alexandrines” of fourteen feet) which
occupies the third volume of Sanchez’s celebrated collection.!
It was once attributed to Gonzalez de Berceo (1190-1266) but
internal evidence assigns it to Juan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga,
who probably was writing about 1200 A.p., and who refers with the

1 Coleccion de Poestas Castellanas anteriores al siglo XV° (5 vols, sm. 4to,
Madrid, 1779-90), an indispensable work. Vol. i. contains the ‘‘Poema del
Cid.”
AN IMPROVING WORK. 109

profoundest respect to the Alexandreis of the above-mentioned
Gaultier.

Without tracing further, then, the growth of this particular branch
of Oriental-European mythology, whose ramifications extend over
two hemispheres, the reader will see that the authors-of romances, of
chivalry, and Fabliaux, in the next two or three centuries, could suffer
from no dearth of material, of a kind, concerning Alexander the
Great.

But to return to the last mention of him in the Déscip/ina, which
also occupies the last chapter of the Afistoria Alexandri magni
de preliis. His tomb was of gold, and a large number of philo-
sophers assembled and heaped laborious epigrams upon it. Thus
one said—

‘* Alexander made a treasure of gold,
Now things are changed, gold makes a treasure of him.”
(The “Lyke” of Alexander supplies by the way another subject
to the voluminous Hans Sachs). Another said—
“« Yesterday the world did not suffice him.

To-day four ells of cloth are enough.”
Another—-

‘¢ Yesterday he could free many from Death,
To-day he could not himself escape Death’s darts.”

And another (the eighth) said—

‘* Yesterday he had friends and enemies,
To-day all are alike to him.”

All which we read word for word in the last chapter of our “Historia
Alexandri maeni regis macedonie de preliis (Argentine, 1486), in
which work moreover it is asserted—-a detail of more intense actuality
than any here mentioned—that Alexander, when first feeling that
he had been poisoned, “got a feather” (gucesivit una penna) and
tickled his throat, but unfortunately to no purpose.

“ But it would be tiresome (memori@ longum) to rehearse all that
110 AN IMPROVING WORK.

the thirty-two philosophers said of the most mighty king,” especially
as they are rehearsed in so many other places.

For this relief the youth, whose powers of memory are being con-
sidered, should have been thankful! The most ancient literature was
more refreshing than such originality.

Chapter xxiv. is a complicated variant of the A#sop’s fable of the
countrywoman and the Wolf. In this version a ploughman says to
his oxen, when they would not go straight, ‘‘ Wolves eat you up!’’
Now when Brer Wolf heard this he lay low (guod lupus audiens
acguievit) ; but at evening, after the man had done ploughing, he
went up to him and said, ‘‘ The oxen, please, that you promised me.”
The ploughman answers that he had sazd so, but not sworn it. “ But
you gave them me,” said Brer Wolf, “and I ought to have them.”
So they went to law about it.

But on the way they meet the Fox, who, having heard the dispute,
says, he can decide it for them as well as any judge. “But I must
first speak a word to each of you in private.” And first he spoke to the
ploughman, ‘‘Give me a hen, and my wife another, and you shall
have your oxen.” “Agreed,” says the ploughman. Then he turns
to the wolf, ‘‘ My good friend, for your singular deserts my eloquence
is bound to make every effort. I have so persuaded this country-
man that if you will let his oxen go scot free (guzefos) he will give
you a cheese (what natural history are not fabulists responsible for ! }
as big as a shield.”

Then Brer Fox takes the deluded wolf off by a long and circuitous
route to a well, which they reach by moonlight, shows him the reflec-
tion of the ZaZf-moon in the well, and says, “ There is your cheese, go
down and eat it.’ The wolf’s cautious request that he, Brer Fox,
should go down first, is the cue for the celebrated well and bucket
trick, to which, moreover, the whole weight of the introductory
moral (belonging by rights to “The Dog and His Shadow”) is.
appended; the rest of the story remaining as pointless as the
descriptive part of a Virgilian simile.
AN IMPROVING WORK. III

In sop, La Fontaine, and all orthodox fabulists, it is of course
the goat upon which the fox exercises his ingenuity, in order to.
escape from an unpleasant predicament, and the original fable is said
to have given rise to a popular phrase (see Plato, Zheetetus, 165, B)
descriptive of an embarrassing situation. Pulci (Morgante maggiore,
ix. 75) appropriates the version here given.! The confusion and
fatuity of many of these hybrid fables, the characteristic, it would
seem, of a curiously indolent sort of ignorance, is something almost
past belief. The writer seems to think that the orthodox postscript
direction ‘‘ Apply to sinner” (applica ad peccatorem) could give point
to the most inconsequent ancedote.

For sheer inanity one might be disposed to give the palm to the
following.

A coy young lady will not her heart incline to an amorous youth.
The latter consults an elderly confidante (the one good and wise
woman of whom the philosopher can remember hearing). This.
astute person has a little dog which she starves for three days and
then feeds with bread and mustard, which makes it weep.

Followed by the weeping hound she pays a call on the coy one,
who is struck by the melancholy air of the animal. ‘ Why does the
little dog weep?” she inquires. ‘O don’t ask,” replies the wise
woman, “it is too painful a matter.”

Finally, however, the necessary fiction is imparted to the maiden.
“‘ That little dog,” says the confidante, “used to be my daughter, who:

1 In ancient fable, as in natural history, both ancient and modern, the fox main-
tains the reputation of superior astuteness. It would be interesting to know at what
date, and among what Indian or African tribe, the rabbit developed the cleverness
so constantly emphasised in the stories collected by Mr. Joel Chandler Harris.
But the “Rabbit and the Lion” in the Jystractive, Grc., Fables of Pilpay (ed.
1775, p- 14, see note above) is identical with that given in Uncle Remus and his
Friends ; and the ‘‘Elephant and the Rabbits” shows another example of
cunicular wisdom. Does the clever rabbit first appear in the Persian Lights of
Canopus (1530), from which this English text is derived, through a bad French

translation ?
112 AN IMPROVING WORK.

was passionately loved by a certain youth, but she was coy and re-
fused to marry him. So she is now always weeping from remorse.”
The young lady is taken in, without a struggle, expresses her terror
of becoming a little dog and weeping mustardy tears for ever more,
and, the tolerably obvious moral having been clearly driven home,
agrees to marry the rejected lover. This story is expanded and im-
proved in the MS. text quoted by Schmidt from the Greek Seven
IVise Masters, itself a translation from the Syrian.

Side by side with such half-fairy tale fiction we find the serious
“modern instance.” The following simple story occurs also in the
Gesta Romanorum.

A rich man wished to pick a quarrel with a poor young man, his
neighbour, and to obtain possession of his house which he would
not sell.

So he begged to be allowed to store in the courtyard ten barrels
of oil, offering to pay for their safe custody. The youth reluctantly
agreed. But the crafty rich man had filled five of the barrels only
half full; and when the time came for restoring them, complained
that the young man had robbed him of the oil, and brought him
before a magistrate.

The youth, in great straits, repairs to a certain philosopher in the
city known as “the Helper of the Needy,” who takes up his case,
and being universally respected is invited to take a seat, we must not
say on the bench, but near the judge. Then, the plaintiff having
been heard, the philosopher makes a suggestion that they should
ascertain the exact amount of fine oil, and of sediment respectively,
in the full barrels. If the same amount were found in those only
half full, then clearly the oil had been stolen. If not, the young man
was innocent, as is accordingly demonstrated. The “ Auxilium
Lgentium” subsequently decides another abstruse case in a fashion
faintly recalling that of Solomon.

But few sages in the story seem to have made themselves so prac-
tically useful. In fact the quantity of pretentious wisdom distributed
AN IMPROVING WORK. 113

about the book in small parcels of miscellaneous advice is appalling. Of
the utterances of the immense staff of “ philosophers ” employed upon
the task not more than a tenth part is really worth listening to.

One can well believe the anecdote recorded by Galland (Ovien-
taliana, ed. 1701, p. 134) of the thousand camel-loads of lite-
rature—presumably of this class—which having been abridged and
abridged by learned editors at the abject request of a monarch who,
presumably, had to pay for the camels, was at last found to be con-
densable into four maxims concerning Obedience, Despotism, Health,
and Womankind !

“* Abide not in the city of a king whose expense is greater than his
income,” indicates an understanding of early finance; and there is
originality and point in the reflection upon injudicious effusiveness,
“ A counsel unspoken you hold imprisoned, once uttered it imprisons
you.”

The melodious bird which a man captures in his garden, advises
him in a lighter vein. It declines to sing. “If you won’t sing Pll
eat you.” ‘How will you eat me?” says the bird, with curious
nonchalance. ‘‘ Boiled I shall be too small, and roasted I shall be
smaller still, or not nice to eat. But let me go, and I shall bring you
great advantage.”

Cross-examined the fowl] promises, in awful Latin, to show to the
learner ‘‘ ¢ves sapientie maneries,” and is set free. Then it begins:
“1, Don’t believe everything that is promised or told you. 2. Keep
what you have got, when possible. 3. Don’t grieve over what you
have lost” 1—and retiring up a tree sings a joyful song, of which
the tenor is, “‘ Ha! ha! what a fool was the man to let me go when,
if he had only known, I have a jacinth weighing a whole ounce in

1 Literally translated in the Chastotement :
(1) Ne croi pas quanque tu orras.
(2) Garde bien ce que tu auras,
Par promesse nel’ perdre pas.

(3) Ne trop ne soies confondu
Por nule riens qu’aies perdu.
114 AN IMPROVING WORK.

1?

my inside This of course sets the man off again, weeping and
beating his breast, till the bird, resuming its lecture, asks, ‘‘ Did I
not tell you not to believe what you are told? How is it possible
that I could have a jacinth of one ounce in my inside, when my
whole body does not weigh so much? Further, I told you not to
grieve over what was lost.” And so on in a tiresome and self-
conscious strain, which makes the reader long for the society of
Brer Rabbit or the March Hare.

Yet mythologically this is an important and far-reaching apologue.
It first appears in the book of Barlaam and Josaphat, where the bird
by the way is a nightingale. The Latin translation is borrowed in
the Gesta Romanorum, and other variants will be found in the
Golden Legend, the French mystery Du Roy Advenir (see Parfait,
Histoire du Théatre Frangais) in John Lydgate’s Zale of the Chorle
and the Byrd (1440), and Hans Sachs’ Zhree Good Useful Advices
of a Nightingale (1555). But this brief parable is a mere interlude.

To return to more serious literature. The Story of the Robber
and the Moonbeam (in the Fabliaux, ‘Du larron qui embraga le rat
de la lune”) is more curious, if scarcely less absurd, than that of
the weeping dog, and perhaps worth giving zz extenso.

“yz, It is told that a certain robber came to the house of a certain
rich man with the object of stealing, and going up on to the roof to
the opening (fenestram) by which the smoke went out, listened
to find if any one was awake inside. And the master of the house
observing this, said softly to his wife, ‘Ask me aloud how I became
possessed of my great wealth, and insist on my telling you’ 2. Then
she said aloud, ‘ My lord, how is it that you have so much wealth,
when you were never a merchant?’ And he answered, ‘ What God
has given that keep and do your will of it, and do not enquire how I
got so much money.’ And she, as had been enjoined her, pressed
more and more to know the matter. 3. At last, as if constrained by
the prayers of his wife, the master said, ‘See you reveal our secrets to
no one. I wasarobber.’ But she replied, ‘It is a marvel to me
AN IMPROVING WORK. 115

how you can have got so much wealth by robbery, since we have
never heard any complaint or scandal about it.’ 4. Then he said:
‘A certain master of mine taught me a charm (carmen) that I used
to say over when I climbed on to the roof, and going to the hole I
took hold of a beam of the moon in my hand, and repeated my
charm seven times, saying “ Sawdem / saulem/” and so I went down
without hurting myself, got together all the valuables in the
house and took them. Then coming again to the moonbeam, and
again repeating my charm seven times, I ascended with all that I
had taken in the house, and carried off home what I had stolen. By
such a device I am in possession of the wealth which I have.’ 5.
Then the woman answered, ‘You have done right to tell me this
story, for whenever I have a son I will teach him this charm to pre-
vent his living in poverty.’ And the master answered, ‘Let me go
to sleep for I am tired and want to rest.’ A person acquainted with
infantine histrionics hardly needs to be told that ‘in order the more
to deceive he began to snore.’ 6. After hearing such a story the
thief in great joy repeated the charm seven times, and taking the
moonbeam in his hand, let go both feet and hands, and fell through
the smoke-hole into the house, making a loud noise, and groaned
aloud, having broken his arm and his leg. Then the master of the
house, as if ignorant, said, ‘Who are you who have fallen in this
manner?’

“The robber answered, ‘I am the unhappy thief who believed
your deceitful words.’”

Poor thief! One can hardly think that he required such elabo-
rate precautions. He would probably have fled at a menacing
gesture, and certainly burst into tears at an unkind word. Yet the
medizeval pupil is quite properly impressed. Thus—

“7, The son answered, ‘ Father, blessed be thou who hast taught
me to avoid crafty counsels.” Which seems a very questionable asser-
tion, but that the moralist in his introduction to the story, ‘Do not
believe all the advice you hear, till you have tried it. . . . lest you

I 2
116 AN IMPROVING WORK.

fare like the thief who believed the advice of the householder,” had
rather emphasised the point of view of the criminal.

Then follows a sentence of obscure profundity. ‘8. A philoso-
pher says, ‘ Beware of an unleavened counsel, till it be fermented.”

One wishes there were more counsels of this kind, but the greater
part are distinguished by a distressing vapidity. What makes the
volume rather difficult to read is that though divided into chapters,
each containing a fable or story, and then a string of morals (with
which the pupil is almost as well primed as the teacher), they mostly
have very little point, and never a conclusion, generally finishing up
with the familiar ‘““And how (or what) was that, father?” Even
when the last sentence appears to be a final statement of the matter,
the next chapter begins with “ for,” and the weary reader finds him-
self off again upon another tack. The paragraph just quoted
concludes with a curious piece of advice given by Aristotle in a letter
to Alexander (the Correspondence of Aristotle, not to mention the
Works of Socrates: and Plato’s astrological book on Zhe Cow,
were within reach of every medieval writer, though hid from the
scholars of our own day) which is not devoid of a certain coarse
tact—

‘“‘ Hasten not to repay a debt whether of good or evil ; since your
friend will court you, and your enemy fear you all the longer.”

The story of the robber and the moonbeam will be found among
those in the Sanscrit collection known as the Aitopadesa (which, as a
collection, is probably not older than that of Petrus Alfonsus) but
is very likely of great antiquity.

A very similar version appears in the Divectorium Vite Humane,
which again is literally translated in the German Book of the Wisdom
of the Ancient Sages (Strasburg, 1529). On the other hand the ver-

1 It is worth remarking that the pseudo-Socrates first appears in the Capita
Theologica, sive scite dicta atque electa ex diversis tum Christianorum tum extern-
orum libris of S. Maximus of Constantinople (ob. 662). Paris. 2 vols. folio.
1675. For the correspondence of Joseph and Pharaoh,v&z., &c., see Fabricius
Bibl. Med. and Inf. Latin.
AN IMPROVING WORK. 117

sion in the Gesta Romanorum? is taken from the Disciplina, and the
editor has added, out of his own head, that the thief was detained
by the householder and hanged in the morning. We can hardly
believe the householder capable of such an atrocity. Still more
miserable is the said editor’s “ moralisation” of the story. The thief
is the Evil One “ who by evil thoughts climbs up the roof of the heart,
and makes an entrance” (the original thief did not make an entrance,
but found one ready made), “through evil compliance” (!) There-
fore we should be watchful, &c., &c; Or, again, he is “Lucifer the
beautiful, who with his whole might would ascend to be another God”
(see Isaiah, chap. xiv.), “and he broke his legs, that is Jost hds
beauty (1), which God had given him, and is hanged upon the
infernal gallows, from which may He protect us who reigns for
ever.” If this application be not far-fetched, what is ?

The teacher in the Désciplina, whose object is at once to amuse
and instruct, maintains no high level of seriousness, and descends
to details of common life. “Do not speak with your mouth full.”
“When you have washed your hands for eating, touch nothing but
your dinner, till you do eat.” (An extraordinarily involved way of
expressing so simple a suggestion!) And after a page of weary
prattling, the youth says to the old man, “ When I am invited to
dinner, what shall I do? Eat too little or too much?” The old
man, avoiding the pitfall of ‘“ Neither,” into which any modern
instructor would have fallen, replies, “Too much. For if it be a
friend who has invited you he will be glad [will he?], but if an
enemy, he will be vexed.” At which the boy laughed. Both
parties were by this time getting rather feeble, and the sage gives
a fillip to the flagging conversation by a few anecdotes of “ May-
mund the lazy,” a celebrated domestic servant. An old man once
asked him (old men in the middle ages seem to have made a
business of this sort of aimless cross-questioning), ‘“‘how much he
could eat?” Maymund replied with a counter-question, “Of

1 Ch. 136, where for ‘‘saulem”’ we read “fallax” (4to. ed. 1497).
118 AN IMPROVING WORK.

whose dinner—my own or someone else’s?”” ‘‘ Your own.” ‘Then
said Maymund, “As little as possible”; and there the colloquy
ended. But the boy was anxious to hear more about Maymund,
one of the most trying domestics ever known.! Maymund was too
lazy to get up and shut the house-door at night, when he was told,
but said that it was shut already. In the morning, when the con-
verse question arose, he said, ‘I never shut it because I knew
you would want it open in the morning.” Then when his master
hastily exclaimed, “Get up and do your work. It is daytime and
the sun is high.” Maymund said, “If the sun is high let me have
my dinner.” “Villain,” cried the master, “do you want to eat in
the middle of the night?” “If it’s the middle of the night, let
me go to sleep.”

In a Teutonic story one feels sure that some brisk action would
here have followed. Indeed this is precisely that species of “ nag-
ging” which in a modern slum causes the rude coster (as we
know from police reports) to throw boots and furniture at his wife.
But here nothing follows, and Maymund goes on. In the night
the master asks him if it is raining. Maymund whistles on the
dog who lay outside, and feels his feet. As they are dry he
answers ‘No, sir.”

“ Maymund, is the fire burning ?”

Maymund calls the ‘“‘mouse-catcher’’ (murilegus, in Latin feles,
Anglicé the cat), and feeling that puss’s fur is cold, replies ‘ No,
sir.” Maymund’s great forte was his loquacity. The chapter (No.
xxx.) illustrating this, may be found in a better form (entitled
The News) in a recently published collection of fairy tales.

Maymund’s master is returning home from the market-place in
cheery mood, having made some good bargains. He sees his ser-
vant coming to meet him, and, knowing the latter’s habits, enjoins

1 See £illis’s Early English Metrical Romances, I. 140, the Sever Wise
Masters, and a volume of Fairy Tales recently edited by Mr. Jacobs.
AN IMPROVING WORK. 119

him strictly to repeat no “evil reports.” ‘Oh no,” said Maymund,
“but our little dog Pipella is dead.” ‘“‘How did she die?”
‘The mule got frightened, broke his halter (chamus or camus, a
rare Greek-Latin word not found in all glossaries), and in running
away trampled her to death.”

‘*What became of the mule?”

‘He fell into a well, and was killed.” Butthe reader will observe
that this question and answer might well be omitted, since it is im-
material to the chain of interrogatories, which should be unbroken.

‘What frightened the mule?”

“Your son fell from the top of the house? and broke his neck, and
that frightened the mule.”

‘“‘ What did his mother do?”

“She died of grief.”

This reply also is clearly out of place, since it would have brought
the colloquy to a natural termination before half the ‘‘news” has
been imparted.

‘Who is looking after the house?”

“Nobody, for it is burnt to ashes with everything inside it.”

‘How was it burnt?”

‘‘On the same night the mistress died, a maidservant who was
watching for her, left a candle burning ;” and so on.

The conclusion is dull, and the dialogue clearly required a few
more rehearsals. It should run, we believe, somewhat in this
style—

“Who is taking care of the house ?”

“Nobody, for it is burnt down.”

“« How did it catch fire ?”

“Oh! from the flaring of the torches at your mother’s funeral.”

1 Solarium—i.e. sunning-place (which in a northern climate would be the
“balcony ”’?)—Hachster offen liegender Raum des Hauses, says Diez. Worterbuch
der Romanischen Sprachen. The word occurs in a curious passage (Claudius, x.)
of Suetonius. See the Variorum note, ed. 1751.
120 AN IMPROVING WORK.

, ‘My mother! what did she die of ?”

“She died of grief at your son’s sudden death.”

And so on, making a completely logical “ Jack-to-fetch-the-
mustard.”

This might well be as interminable as the narrative of the royal
story-teller, whom we all know, and who duly reappears in the
Disciplina, this time with a story of a rustic who has bought
2,000 sheep, and has to take them across a river two at a time.
So he takes two sheep, puts them in the boat, and rows across the
river.

At this point the official conteur falls asleep. Awakened by the
sleepless monarch and ordered to go on with the story, he adds,
“Sire, the boat is small, the river wide, and the sheep innumer-
able. Let the man ferry them across, and when he has done I
will finish the story.”

This monarch, we feel, would have appreciated the Chinese
comedy (described in Acosta’s entertaining Aistory of the Indies),
which lasted ten days and ten nights, the actors working in shifts.

Perhaps, indeed, the clearest impression left by the great mass
of the literature here considered is that of an intense and dragging
boredom of existence, the vacuity of which was to be dissipated
at all hazards, intellectual and literary.

A narrative of the serious kind last mentioned could hardly have
been necessary to send the reader of the Dysciplina Clericalis to
sleep, the purpose for which most of us, like the poet Wordsworth,
use to count imaginary sheep. Persevering would he be who
remained awake so long as to hear the short and pithy sermon
from a hermit, which brings the work to a close with an inevitable
reference to the Day of Judgment, and (that which seems to have
weighed so lightly upon medieval story-tellers) the shortness of
human life !
IV,
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.
(1740)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plate of the capture of Porto Bello (see p. 138 fost), from the original (Dutch) edition of Exque-
melin’s History of the Buccaneers, sm. 4to, Amsterdam, 1678, p. 88. (The illustrations to
this volume are poorly reproduced in the English translation of 1684.)
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

(1740)?

“‘He was the blood-thirstiest buccaneer that ever sailed—but I was sometimes
proud that he was an Englishman . . . . I’ve seen his topsails with these eyes
off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rumpuncheon that I sailed with put back,
put back, sir, into Port of Spain.” —TZreasure Jsland.

T is perhaps no matter for serious regret that from
the well-policed seas of the modern world, that
picturesque hero—the pirate—seems almost to have
vanished, or, in those remote corners where the
“Black Flag” still flies, to cut but a miserable figure

in the face of well-armed and civilized society—miserable alas!

because no longer surrounded by the halo of success.

But the pirate lives in story, and if we can seldom meet him except
by appointment, on the high seas, yet the locality of his former
haunts, of the true “Treasure Islands” of History is easily to be
gathered from the highly actual romance of Mr. Robert Louis
Stevenson. Is not the vessel called the Aispaniola? Does not
Squire Trelawney’s remark (above quoted) sketch for us the haunts
as well as the habits of the ideal pirate in one dramatic sentence ?

 

1 This date is of course not that of the golden age of piracy, but of the point of
view from which it is regarded in the work here reviewed.
124 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

Moreover in what the historian has preserved of Flint’s own log—
‘‘offe Caraccas”’ is the location of at least one of that celebrated cut-
throat’s undescribed deeds of blood.

The real ‘“‘ Treasure Islands” are of course the picturesque group
known—ever since poor Columbus just four hundred years ago
mistook one of the Bahamas for the coast of Japan—as the “‘ West
Indies”—a name representing a concession on the part of Geo-
graphic Science to the foible of a great man. The sanguine explorer,
like the inexperienced Alpist who takes each successive “col” for
the longed-for summit, imagined that he had reached “India” before
his little flotilla had made half, or indeed, allowing for the non-
existence of a canal at Panama (of which more anon) even one third
of the way.

The singular ocean lake, shut in on the south and west by the
twisted half-broken strip that holds together the two Americas, and
protected on the north and east by the projecting arm of Florida,
the broken bar of Cuba and San Domingo (Hispaniola), and the
long curving sweep of the Windward Islands, appears from the first
glance at the map, as a little world shut off and secluded, remote, as
it still is, from any centre of civilization, which we might expect to
possess a beauty, a climate, and perhaps even a standard of morals
entirely its own.

The ardent prayer of Mr. Kipling’s d/asé hero,

Ship me somewhere east of Suez where the best is like the worst,
And there ain’t no ten commandments, and a man can raise a thirst,

would have been answered early in the last century by a transporta-
tion to the fertile and beautiful Island of Jamaica, the very heart of
the sequestered nook just described. If the “‘ West Indies” are not
exactly “‘east of Suez” (a point not very material to the navigator
of the eighteenth century) by the shortest route from Great Britain,
they would have supplied all the other essentials here demanded in
even more than satisfying quantity. So we infer from a series of
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 125

Letters from Jamaica, which have just reached us, although addressed
to the public about 150 years ago.!

A mere “account of Jamaica” though dedicated to the Earl of
Eglinton and Winton, is a thing one might throw aside after half
an hour’s after-dinner perusal. Dazzling beauties of Nature, sugar-
canes, slaves (who chronically revolt with more or less awful con-
sequences) hummingbirds that one shoots with sand, swamps, fevers,
and rum—all these things, including the habits of the alligator so
graphically depicted by Mr. Waterton, are familiar enough, and (except
for the abolished institution of slavery) might be better described in
a modern guide to the Island. But when we stumble in Letters IV.
and V., on an authentic cameo of piratical history from the point of
view of an inhabitant of the capital which was the centre of the
buccaneering industry, the work arrests our attention at once.

To revert for one moment to the explorations of Christopher
Colon is not to digress—a most objectionable practice—but merely
to hitch on the details of Mr. Leslie’s veracious romance to the course
of general history.

It need hardly be remarked, to begin with, that Columbus no longer
enjoys the exalted reputation which he once had. Of his seaman-
ship and general ability we need not doubt, but in respect of
avarice and bigotry he might have been a born Spaniard. Gold,
the gold which he thought and wrote was a most excellent
thing, which meant “mastery of the world, and could even bring
souls into Paradise,” constantly occupied his thoughts.

His motives therefore for the voyage to the ‘‘ West Indies,”
though overlaid with a great deal of superstitious piety and indeed
mysticism—for at one time he seems to have asserted if not believed
that his discoveries were independent of all the material assistance
derived from science and hydrography—were not very much better
than those which inspired so many others and in particular so

1 4 New and Exact Account of Jamaica, &c. (by Charles Leslie). 3rd edition,
8vo, Edinburgh, 1740.
126 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

many Spaniards to betake themselves to a territory in itself inde-
scribably attractive, and inhabited by the most guileless of savages.
But this fact does not diminish the interest attaching to the Biography 4

1 Vita dé Cristoforo Colombo, descritta da Ferdinando suo figho & tradotta
da Alfonso Ulloa (the original text is lost), Dulau, Londra, 8vo, 1867 (a poorly
printed edition, but with conveniently large margins), supplies a most natural
and fascinating, if not perfectly reliable narrative. In the first expedition (1492)
the orders of the Admiral on leaving the Canaries were that after the fleet had
done 700 leagues of ‘‘ westing,” they were ot to sail during the night, for fear of
collision with land. A velvet doublet and an annuity of thirty scudi had been
promised by their Catholic Majesties to the sailor who first sighted land, and
Columbus himself received this prize—having sighted some moving light on shore
from the deckhouse of his own Carave/—on the curious ground that he (the
Admiral) had discovered spiritual ‘“‘light in darkness,” z.e. surpassed the rest
in the religious fervour of his belief in himself, or in Providence, although a
mariner on the Pix¢a, which carried more sail, claimed the reward, apparently
with better justification. Ferdinand gives lively details of the voyage—the
singing of the ‘‘Salve Regina” every evening, the birds flitting about the
rigging, and the objects floating in the water that announced the vicinity of the
long-desired land.

The result of the discoveries of Columbus, and of Amerigo Vespucci was the
famous diplomatic contest between Spain and Portugal which cannot be better
summarized than in the words of Dyer (Alod. Europe, I. 320). ‘The
theory of the sphericity of the earth (see the entertaining arguments of
Lactantius, Dzv. Jnst. III. 24), on which the discoveries of Columbus were
founded, and in accordance with which Spanish and Portuguese adventurers might
have come into collision in their new settlements, was an heretical notion which
could not for a moment be entertained by the See of Rome. Unfolding the
orthodox map of Cosmas Indicopleustes” (in his Tofographia Christiana, com-
posed 536 A.D., and published by Montfaucon 1707), ‘‘ from which it appeared
that the longer the Spaniards sailed to the west and the Portuguese to the east,
the farther they would be separated from one another, Pope Alexander VI. drew
from north to south a line of demarcation passing 100 leagues west of the Azores
and Cape Verd. All to the east of this line he gave to Portugal, all to the west
to Spain (May 4, 1493).” The Bull was subsequently modified by another which
shifted the line of demarcation another 370 leagues westward—a trifling alteration
—in order to secure Brazil to the Portuguese, who by the way had previously
asserted a Papal title (derived chiefly from Eugenius IV., ob. 1447) to the whole
of the ‘‘ New World,” whatever it might turn out to include. See the interesting
chapter in Mariana—Aistoria General de Espahia xxxvi. 3, Del descubrimento
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 127

which describes his voyages, and supplies the first chapter in the
History of Europeans in the West Indies.

According to the account given by his son (chap. xxi.)
Columbus first landed on Thursday, October 11, 1492, at the island
of “‘Los Lucagios,” which he afterwards tells us (chap. xxv.) was
called by the natives Guanahani, and which 4e christened San Salva-
dor; but modern authorities, we believe, have decided in favour of
Mariguana, now a deserted island.1 He subsequently proceeded
from one island to another, guided by the reports of their gold-bearing
properties. It was at the close of his second voyage that leaving
Cuba on the 3rd of May, 1494, he set sail for Jamaica, which had
been reported to him as particularly rich. The natives at first made
an unusual exhibition of hostility, but being soon awed by a few shots
into quiet behaviour, came and exchanged victuals and other things
for “any article offered them.” The admiral did not land, but
coasted round towards the west some way, before returning to
Cuba.

The biographer records that a very young Indian came to Colum-
bus and begged to be taken to Spain, and in spite of the supplica-
tions of his relatives that he would return with them, remained on
board, orders being specially given that he should be kindly treated.
The incident has quite a pathetic interest. Before this ‘‘ very young
Indian ” had reached middle age, his compatriots at least knew all
that they could desire of the avarice, tyranny, and cruelty of Castile,
and must have cursed the day when the caravel of Columbus first
hove in sight.

Columbus was the first of the long succession of gold-hunting
adventurers—his later followers made no pretence of religion—to
de las Indias Occtdentales. In spite of the ‘‘incredible activity’ of Spanish
explorers, ‘‘it has not yet been quite clearly ascertained” he tells us (writing
about 1590) ‘‘ whether Western India joins on to Eastern (se continua con la
Oriental) or whether north of Cathay in China, and of Japan there is a stretch of

sea which divides them ”—the strait discovered by Vitus Behring in 1728.
1 E. J. Payne, History of the New World called America.
128 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

visit these beauteous but ill-fated shores. In 1509 Jamaica and San
Juan were thoroughly “settled ” by the Spaniards, after their fashion.
We turn to that most tragical of records, the Short Account of the
Destruction of the West Indies, addressed to Philip II. in 1552, by
the humane Bartolomeo de Las Casas, and under the brief heading
which concerns these two islands, we read of dreadful outrages, crimes
(it is a relief to hear) previously rehearsed, new and singular atrocities
and barbarities, murdering, burning, roasting, torturing, hunting with
wild dogs, forced labour in the mines, &c., of which the net result
is that of “these unhappy innocents,” of whom there had been
600,000 souls, there are now scarcely left 200! ‘and all died with-
out religion or the sacraments.” 1

In such fashion was European civilisation and religion first im-
posed upon the simple and harmless inhabitants of the ‘“‘ West Indies.”

To connect their ‘career with the general history of Great
Britain, Jamaica, as the veriest Jacobite would now admit, is a
valuable possession conferred upon us (in 1655) by the enterprise of
the usurper Cromwell. The leaders of the expedition, we all know,
were on their return committed to the Tower, and Sir W. Penn ap-
pears to admit to Mr. Pepys (sub anno 1663) that the failure to seize
more than the one island of Jamaica was his own fault.?

At this date a company, established by royal charter, was under
contract to supply the Spanish colonies in these parts with 3,000
slaves per annum. Indeed the business of importing negroes to
the West Indies first inaugurated by Sir John Hawkins (whose
profits were shared by Queen Elizabeth) in 1562, continued to
flourish for some two centuries later. Yet Penn’s acquisition was
not thought much of at the time, and Oliver Cromwell, who ap-

1 Las Casas, Fr. Barthol. de (1474-1566), Breve relacion de la Destruccion de
las Indias Occidentales (Seville, 1552). 8vo, Londres, 1812.

2 The original account of the expedition—-Journal of the English Army in the
West Indies, by an eye-witness (Harl. MS, VI. 372) is cited in Carlyle’s Letters
and Speeches of Cromwell.
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 129

pears to Mr. Leslie to have been a person not devoid of a certain
malign ingenuity, was even suspected of circulating too glowing
accounts of its attractions, in order to get discontented Royalists
to go there. Anyhow, “ persons of desperate fortune” betook them-
selves in large numbers to Jamaica. After the Restoration, again,
this class was augmented by followers of the Republican party.
The ‘“‘old grudge” disturbed even so distant a colony worse than
ever, Royalists being favoured, while Cromwellians, “ the only party
that understood the art of war,” were excluded from all places of
trust and profit. The Government party, therefore, in the island
found the encouragement of the already popular industry of
“Pyracy” to be “necessary,” both to counterbalance the force of
these malcontents and to lure them into some profitable occu-
pation. This simple policy, the reader will learn with interest,
was a complete success. The colony, whose population (placed at
20,000 in 1740) had, it is true, but little increased since Crom-
wellian days,! became “the resort of the Privateers, who made

1 The ‘‘ peopling ” of Jamaica was effected in strange and dreadful manners.
First the Royalist, closely followed by the Cromwellian ‘‘malcontents,” with
tribes of the desperate characters bred of a disturbed time. Secondly, one of the
most awful pages in Irish history is the correspondence of Henry Cromwell with
the Protector upon this subject. Mr. Secretary Thurloe writes that ‘‘a stock of
Trish girls and young men are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica” ; and Henry
Cromwell answers: ‘‘ Concerning the supply of young men, although we must use
force in taking them up, yet, z¢ dedng so much for their good” (exactly how much
the reader may conjecture) . . . ‘it is not doubted that you may have such a
number as you think fit to make use of.” He thinks also it were well to send
I,500 or 2,000 boys to the place mentioned. ‘‘ We can well spare them: and
who knows but it may be the means of making them Englishmen—I mean, rather,
Christians ?” . . . In reply Thurloe informs him that ‘‘the Council”—as a man
might order trout for the stocking of a stream !—“‘have voted 4,000 girls and as
many boys to go to. Jamaica.” It is not clear that they went. Some of these
passages may be found collected in Moore’s AZemotrs of Captain Rock. Moreover,
hundreds of the victims of Judge Jeffreys, after the Monmouth rising, were
despatched to the same place (1685), See the account given in John Coad’s
Memorial (cited by Macaulay), published by Pickering, 1848.

K
130 THE PIRATE'S PARADISE.

Jamaica a kind of home.” This “ was no sooner known” than all
persons with a distaste for the Ten Commandments, all who found
“life too inactive,”—or law, we may presume, too active,—in Old Eng-
land, eagerly transported themselves thither. Malcontents, Republican
or Royalist, ‘soon found their account in joining with the Privateers,
forgot their old murmurs, acquiesced in the administration, and in a
short time all distinction of parties was quite lost.” 1

Such was the Arcadian state of Jamaica during what appears to
have been the golden age of piracy up to the last decade of the
seventeenth century. Governors and planters vied with each other
in providing the necessary arms and vessels, expecting their return
in the wealth which the successful buccaneer regularly squandered
in the friendly port. The funds thus accumulated and dissipated
became the life and soul of the colony. The gentlemen of fortune
who actively engaged in the trade “had such surprising success as
will perhaps scarce gain belief in succeeding ages.” The author
hardly knows how to describe them to us. He regrets, of course,
that “the stain of Pyracy sullies their great actions, and caused them
to be regarded as disturbers of mankind, and villains ;” but calling
in the assistance of our venerable friend the “better cause,” he
assures us that “their fame might have equalled that of any antient
or modern heroes.” He “cannot tell whether it was bad policy,
although it was certainly bad morality, to encourage these despera-
does,” but is sure “‘that a summary of their lives will suggest a great
many useful reflections” to the reader. And this it certainly does,
the most obvious perhaps being the contrast between the weakness
of what the author calls the “silly dastardly Spaniard ” (whose mono-
poly of the West Indies, as we read in Mr. Green’s history, was first
broken up by our capture of Jamaica) and the increasing superfluous
energy of Great Britain.

‘ It is moreover a curious fact that after the Act of Union in 1706, so many

Scotchmen emigrated to the Island, that it was called, Dr. Somerville tells us,
“* the grave of Scotland.”
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 131

But the first of the heroes here sketched by Mr. Leslie is a Por-
tuguese, Bartholomew, the model, piratically speaking, of a self-
made man, who started with nothing but “the courage of a lion.”
He begins life in a “‘ leaky scooner (a small kind of sloop used for
carrying sugars to Port Royal) mounted with four iron guns.” His
crew being “all brave and to be depended upon,” they make no
difficulty of attacking, off Cape de Corriente, in Cuba, a fine ship of
twenty guns and seventy men, bound to the Havannah; are beaten
off with loss, but, coming up with her again, renew the attack until
she is glad to surrender. Taking to the prize, which they find “an
excellent relief,” they steer for Cape St. Antony, on the west side of
Cuba, meaning to water, but, unexpectedly falling in with three
Spanish coastguards, are, after a smart engagement, taken and made
prisoners. As they had on board 120,000 weight of cacao and
70,000 pieces of eight,! this depressed their spirits exceedingly. The
vessels, being dispersed by a storm, were driven to the port of
Campechie (Campeachy, on the west coast of Yucatan), where the
Pyrates were well known, and Bartholomew was “without much
form or ceremony,” condemned to be hanged. In the night, how-
ever, he stabbed his keeper, floated himself ashore upon two earthen
jars, fled to the woods, and lived on herbs and fruits for many days,
eluding the strictest search and hidden in a hollow tree. Thence,
almost famished, he strikes out overland for some forty leagues ;
crosses a great river, being a poor swimmer, on an old board and a
few boughs cut off by means of nails “sharpened with incredible
pains”; and, after enduring calamities which one can well believe
“nothing but his invincible daring spirit could have supported,”
arrives at Golfo Triste (Ascension ?), and is welcomed by a crew of
Pyrates then in the bay. Bartholomew did but ask a boat’s crew of
twenty men to return to Campeachy, “and be revenged on the

1 As to the value of this coin we may refer the reader to a passage in Pepys’s
Diary (May 11, 1663), where he records his disputing with Sir G. Carteret
whether the ‘‘ piece of eight ” were worth 4s. 5d. or 45. 9d.

K 2
132 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

Spaniards ;” a feat which he at once accomplishes, finding himself
thus master of a fine vessel where he had lately been confined and
condemned to be hanged, and also of a vastly rich prize, having on
board much merchandise, besides what had been originally taken
from himself— a happy success,” which gave the simple Pyrate ‘a
great deal of pleasure.” With the proceeds he proposed to make a
“ good deal” at Jamaica; but unfortunately his ship went ashore on
the banks called the Jardines, near the island of Pinos, where she
split; and Bartholomew and company, barely escaping with life,
returned to Jamaica to seek their fortunes anew.

Brasiliano, the Dutchman expelled from Brazil at the Portuguese
invasion, was another who, having taken refuge in the British colony,
and being anxious to get on, “saw no way so likely to do it as by
turning Pyrate,” in which line he soon distinguished himself by the
same qualities. ‘He feared nothing, avoided no danger, and always
went upon the most difficult enterprises.” This was indeed the
golden rule of Pyracy which, accidents apart, invariably led to success.

Vessel after vessel did Brasiliano and his friends take, regularly
returning to Port Royal to squander away their gold in every kind of
debauchery. On sea or on land “nothing could withstand the
valour of these desperadoes.” They shrank from no encounter at
any odds, and their victories were generally followed by “horrid
cruelties with which they tortured the poor Spaniards after a manner
shocking to relate,” partly in order to get more money, partly, it
seems, in mere wantonness of fury. Whatever they got was, however,
spent in a very short time, the Pyrate being quickly reduced to
beggary. ‘‘They have been known to spend 2,000 or 3,000 pieces
of eight in one night.” On these occasions wine literally flowed
down the streets. The successful buccaneers insisted upon every one
partaking of their hospitality; at other times they showered the
beverage about the streets, wetting the clothes of passers-by, which
seemed to them an “excellent diversion.” Some persons objected,
doubtless, but on the whole it was considered good for trade.
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 133

When poverty, on one occasion, drove Brasiliano to sea again, he,
like Bartholomew, was captured whilst calmly “ viewing the Fort” of
Campeachy. The Governor determined to hang him and his crew;
but their captain had the address to write a letter, as from other
Pyrates, threatening horrid cruelties to any of the Spanish nation
who should ever fall into their hands. And ¢his letter had the desired
effect, so well known were both the courage and cruelty of the pirate
community.

Brasiliano and his friends were sent home in the galleys, from
which we are not surprised to learn they shortly after escaped, and
continued to commit ‘horrid barbarities” on the Spanish coast.
Brasiliano had an inveterate spite against the race, and expressed it
in a way which left no room for misconception. Some he roasted
alive on wooden spits, others he tortured with lighted matches put
under their armpits. In sober truth “those that died were the lucky
ones.” The Spaniards do not seem at the time to have provoked
this conduct. It proceeded rather on the principle of odzsse guem
leseris, or took its rise in the deadly boredom caused by every
interval of repose in a life of “battle, murder, and sudden death.”
Brasiliano continued thus, we read, for many years still successful in
his attempts, and highly regarded by his fellow-villains, over whom
he had such influence that in all his adventures there never was one
mutiny, “which” (not the mutiny, but its absence) “‘is a rare thing
aboard of a Pyrate ship.”

It being remembered that these particular freebooters were but
shining lights among the numerous throng of their fraternity, we
are not surprised to learn that the effect on Spanish commerce was
considerable. The greatness of Spain—a thing of scarce more than
a century’s apparent duration—had never very deep roots. It made
much show while it lasted by an enormous extravagance and vanity,
but was almost from the first eaten at the core by bigotry, fanatic
blindness, cowardice, and cruelty, which the efforts of a score of
Brasilianos could hardly have repaid as it deserved, for no deeds
134 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

attributed to the worst pirate equal those recorded of his countrymen
by Las Casas.

The contemporary records of the great Armada (introduced only
recently to English readers by the late Mr. Froude) give an astonish-
ing picture of material force and wealth nullified by the moral and
physical incompetence of which so many examples are to be noticed
in Leslie’s narrative, and by a peculiar sort of sanctified stupidity.1
The power of Spain, then at its height, after the destruction of the
Armada and during the seventeenth century steadily declined, but
she still had a practical monopoly of the West Indies.?

It is rather surprising, therefore, to be told that “the Spaniards
found themselves so miserably harassed that they resolved to diminish
the number of their trading vessels,” hoping by this means that the
pirates would leave off, finding they could get no good prizes!
But the Dutch, it may be remembered on two occasions during the
seventeenth century, ‘‘forbad trade” in order to save it from England.
Another evidence of the straits to which the proprietors of the Indies
were reduced may be noted elsewhere in the well-known account of
Anson’s voyages round the world. The solitary island of Juan
Fernandez, where early mariners were in the habit of taking a rest
after rounding the terrible Cape Horn, was also a favourite resort of
pirates, for whom the native goats afforded a useful supply of meat.
The Centurion, touching there in 1740, found several of these
animals bearing the mark of Alexander Selkirk (who was taken off
by Wood Rogers and Stephen Courtney, of the Duke and Duchess
privateers, of Bristol, in 1709); but most of them had been driven
up into the high ground by the ‘wild dogs” with which the
Spaniards had stocked the island in order to render it less attractive

1 See the account of the extraordinary religious apparatus brought in the Spanish
Armada, coupled with the insufficiency of powder, shot, anchor-ropes, &c., also Dr.
Sharp’s well-known Letter to the Duke of Buckingham reporting the examination
of the first Spanish prisoners taken. Codlection of original Letters (2 vols. 1755),
vol. i.

? See the passage cited from Montesquieu’s Letters (AZemozrs, p. 157, post).
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 135

to pirates. These dogs would even attack a man! But to
return to the West Indies. These concessions on the part of
the merchant community to the organised forces of piracy produced
quite the opposite effect to that intended. They were, in fact,
but the beginning of piracy on a really extensive and wholesale
scale.

For the buccaneers “‘ were resolved to have money from them at
any rate,” and so, finding no ships of value upon the sea, they
determined in this extremity to land and plunder the country. The
proceedings of Lewis Scot, who first began this method of robbing,
resemble closely those of the successful bushranger of thirty years ago.
To use the Australian term, Lewis Scot “stuck up” the town of
Campeachy, and did not leave it until he had exacted an enormous
ransom. Mansvelt meanwhile captured the island of St. Katharine’s
and took everything that was valuable, extorting heavy ransoms from
the prisoners.

But the name to conjure with at this time was that of John Davis,
a native of Jamaica. His most celebrated feat was a successful
attack upon Nicaragua with only eighty men.

Nicaragua lies some seventy miles inland from the Caribbean
coast. The pirates, therefore, having hidden their vessel in a creek,
and “using the night-time lest their black designs should be dis-
covered,” sailed in canoes up the river, which American engineers
have since made part of a canal, and arrived at the town “on the
third night.” The sentry taking them for fishermen, they were
allowed to land without question ; and, knocking at the doors of the
chief inhabitants, were admitted without suspicion, and at once

1 One wonders if these were the dogs (ferros bravos) which the Spaniards, at
an earlier date, had trained to kill and eat the natives of the West Indian Islands.
See Las Casas, Relacion ; also Colliber’s Sea Affairs, 1735, p. 295. Voyage Round
the World (1740-1744) of George Lord Anson, Bk. II., ch. 1. ‘‘ Anson,” writes
Walpole to Mann (June 18, 1744), ‘‘is returned with a vast fortune. He has

brought the Acapulca ship into Portsmouth, and its treasure is computed at
500,000, “He escaped the Brest squadron in a mist.”
136 THE PIRATE'S PARADISE.

“began to exercise their wonted cruelties. Some they immediately
murdered, others they bound and gagged”’; and then proceeded to
pillage, houses, churches, and everything.

The citizens, indeed, presently got together, but could do no more
than the inhabitants of an Australian town surprised by the Kelly
gang. The pirates, having secured all that they desired, retreated
to their canoes and got back to their ships in safety, with “‘a great
deal of riches” and many prisoners. The latter they compelled to
beg provisions for them from the neighbouring plantations, and then
stood out to sea; not, however, before 500 well-armed Spaniards
appeared on the sea-side. But the pirates let fly several broadsides
into them, which “put the party into no small confusion,” and
sailed off with the booty—50,000 pieces of eight—to Jamaica, where
it was spent in the usual fashion.

‘“‘ Davis grew famous. This exploit gained him universal esteem.”
The planters ‘‘ were in love with his success,” and nothing was
talked of in Jamaica but his courage and conduct; and another
fleet was soon provided, of which he was admiral, and with which he
made a more distant expedition to St. Augustine, in Florida. The
place was defended, if we can say so, by a castle with 200 men.
But Davis stormed the fort, pillaged the town, ‘committed horrid
murders,” and retired without the loss of one man.

During this period, says the reflective historian, the colony was in
its greatest glory, and money was so plentiful that Port Royal was
reckoned the richest spot of ground in the world—and thus we are
introduced naturally to the history of one ‘whose name is to this
day a terror to Spain.”

The bushranging associations above referred to will be recalled by
the mention of the name of Morgan. Sir Henry Morgan, who was
born in the principality of Wales, the son of a respectable farmer,
might have been a Pirate of Penzance, so prosaic was the practical
success of his career.

After running away to Bristol, where he bound himself as a
THE PIRATE'S PARADISE. 137

servant for four years, he was duly transported to Barbadoes and
there sold. Having faithfully served his term, he shipped himself
to Jamaica, determined to follow his natural bent in the direction
of piracy, and at once found a satisfactory engagement.

His resolution and courage in several prosperous expeditions on
the Spanish coasts were much admired, and having noted the ill
effects of the extravagance and debauchery popular among his
associates, he practised a thoughtful economy, “lived moderate,
having vast designs in view,” and soon invested his honest savings in
a vessel of his own. Prize after prize did he bring into Port Royal,
by rapid steps ascending the ladder of piratical success. His renown
next attracted the attention of the veteran Mansvelt, above men-
tioned, who engaged Morgan as his vice-admiral.

With fifteen ships and 500 men they swept. down upon the little
island of St. Katharine’s, on the “rich coast” of Central America,
and made themselves masters of it, leaving a garrison in the place,
which they intended to keep for their own use. The adjoining
island they also pillaged, and a further attack upon the territory of
Costa Rica itself was only cut short by the vigorous efforts of the
Governor of Panama.

The island of St. Katharine’s—which the Governor of Jamaica
refused to occupy—not daring to give such open support to the
pirates, was, shortly after Mansvelt had ‘ended his wicked life,”
retaken by the Spaniards.

Morgan, now an independent pirate king, soon found himself at
the head of twelve ships and 700 fighting men. He first thought of
attacking Havannah,! but decided to begin with a smaller enterprise
upon the “fine inland town” of Puerto del Principe. Owing to the

1 Havannah possessed a harbour capable of holding a thousand vessels, pro-
tected by two forts. Itwas taken in August, 1762, by Pocock and Lord Albemarle
—one of the largest captures ever made, and the most important exploit of the
war, the ‘‘bag” being thirteen vessels and near £3,000,000 in gold nd

merchandise.
138 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

escape of a prisoner, the place got the alarm, and the Governor set
ambuscades, blocked up the roads, and encamped with an armed
force in front of the town. Morgan and his friends were “surprised,”
but could not think of retreating—it was indeed too late. They
took to the woods, avoided the ambuscades, and soon reached the
plain where the Spaniards awaited him. The usual result followed.
“Nothing could stand against the fury of the Pyrates, who fought
like so many madmen.” After a regular engagement of four hours,
in which the Governor and many others were killed, the Spaniards
fled, and the town, after some defence, was taken.

The usual “horrible barbarities” followed; men, women, and
children were shut up in the churches and almost starved, while the
pirates plundered and devoured their property. Torture was freely
practised on the same business-like principles. Enormous ransoms
were exacted. Many unhappy wretches died of the torments,
besides those that succumbed to famine.

Disturbed by the unseasonable piece of news that a force was
coming to attack them from Santiago, the pirates at last decamped
with all they could get. One painful incident marred the success of
the expedition—an “unhappy division among the crew.” An English
sailor had stabbed a Frenchman! C’é¢ait trop. Morgan carried the
criminal in chains to Jamaica and then “ caused him to be hanged.”

But the life of a successful and industrious, nay, virtuous, pirate
was not unmixed bliss. The spoils of Puerto del Principe hardly
paid the debts of Morgan’s company in Port Royal. So they started
out again—450 men in nine small vessels in the direction of Costa
Rica. Not till they were well out at sea did Morgan confide to
them his design of attacking Porto Bello, “one of the strongest
places in the West Indies,” and a great centre of commerce, with a
population of “500 families.” A few pirates objected. But Morgan
pointed out that “if their numbers were small, their hearts were
great,” adding (with perhaps an imperfect recollection of Shakes-
peare), ‘the fewer men, the greater share of plunder.” Thus con-
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 139

vinced, and guided by an Englishman who had been a prisoner in
the hands of the Spaniards, and who had chosen to “list a Pyrate,”
solely with a view to revenge, they sailed up miles of river, and
finally assaulted the place from the land. It was indeed a danger-
ous undertaking, and in the course of capturing ¢hree castles, armed
with artillery, Morgan came as near as ever to being nonplussed,
although his men took their aim so well that they never missed to
shoot the Spaniards when the latter came to load the guns. Both
parties behaved with equal courage. The attacking party applied
fireballs to the gates, but the garrison threw down huge stones and
flasks of powder. The “crafty Pyrate’s” idea of employing the
monks and nuns taken from the monasteries to set up their scaling
ladders for them showed an extravagant reliance upon Spanish
orthodoxy, and was defeated by the resolution of the Governor, who
fired with the greatest fury, killing great numbers of the religious.
Fortunately, at such a moment of embarrassment Morgan observed
the “English colours” (a pleasing reflection for the nineteenth.
century Briton) “hoisted upon the other fort” which had succumbed
to another detachment of his forces. ‘This sight encouraged his
fainting troops to the attack,” and shortly after the whole place was,
if one can say so, at their mercy. The Governor, with whom one
feels much sympathy, died at his post fighting and killing pirates
with his own hand to the last.

Every variety of outrage was let loose upon the wretched in-
habitants. The pirates, sailing under the British flag, appear to have
carried about with them a whole arsenal of tortures worthy of the
Inquisition. Elderly gentlemen, “reported to be rich,” were hung
up by the “thumbs and great toes” and roasted with a fire made of
palm-leaves, until they or their friends bid the required amount of
ransom, and, the business of barbarity being accomplished upon the
captives, “the Pyrates made game of their misery.” This, indeed,
and the debaucheries of Port Royal were the only relaxations to the
sombre routine of their profession. One hundred thousand pieces
140 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

of eight was the required ransom, and some inhabitants vainly
trusted to a rescuing party from Panama. But a hundred pirates
soon disposed of the latter hope, “killing an incredible number,”
merely to show that Morgan was not to be trifled with.

That our pirates “were welcome guests at Jamaica” we can, after
what we have been told, well understand. “The planters caressed
Morgan,” and the inferior sort—the tradesmen, we presume—“ soon
drained his associates of their money.” The Governor of Jamaica
gave Morgan a fine new vessel of thirty-two guns, and he soon found
himself at the head of “1,000 brave resolute fellows.” The vessel
indeed chanced to blow up with several hundreds aboard, but, Mor-
gan being fortunately uninjured, all the rest were soon replaced.
Their next venture touched the utmost limit of audacity. To attack
Maracaibo they sailed up an inland lake—a sort of sea, in fact,
guarded at the mouth by a fort—forced their way in, reached the
town, and after immense trouble (and the indefatigable employment
of torture) succeeded in getting a fair amount of booty. The in-
habitants indeed took to the woods, in a manner which exasperated
Morgan, concealing the possessions which they dared not even
attempt to defend, and had to be hunted out, the Spaniards on the
coast having all the time thus occupied for repairing their defences
and cutting off the pirates’ retreat by blocking up the narrow passage.
This, in fact, they did, and Morgan’s party on their return, “tired,”
as we are pathetically informed, ‘‘ with repeated rapes and murders,”
found the fort strongly garrisoned and provided with artillery, and,
if that were not enough, three Spanish men-of-war guarding the
entrance of the lake.

The reader will have inferred from the expressions of Mr. Leslie,
which we have ventured to quote, the difficulty experienced by this
gentleman in concealing or subduing his affectionate admiration for
a class of persons to whom the happy British colony which he had
made his home owed so much of its prosperity. Although recollect-
ing himself sufficiently to exclaim now and again upon their wicked-
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 141

ness and cruelty, this language may be significantly compared with
what he says elsewhere of the barbarities exercised upon their masters
by a few revolted slaves. But if the somewhat laborious attempt to
whitewash Morgan from the charge of complicity in “ horrid bar-
barities,” of which it would be impossible to print a detailed cata-
logue, smacks of a patriotic partisanship, nothing showed up more
clearly than the Maracaibo affair the sterling qualities of this
prince of pirates.

He and his troop were practically done for—outnumbered and cut
off, yet such was the respect inspired by the mere name of Morgan
that the Spanish Governor proposed to let them pass if they would
give up all the spoils and prisoners taken during the expedition.
The pirates, instead of jumping at this proposal, regarded it as “‘ shock-
ing.” “ The riches they had got (as the Spanish Governor seemed
not to-understand) they had exposed their lives to obtain; and they
resolved to quit with life before tamely resigning what they had
bought at so dear a price.” Nor did they. Morgan’s ready resource
at once devised a fire-ship, which looked quite unlike one. Its port-
holes were fitted with counterfeit cannon, and there were imitation
pirates, in picturesque attitudes on the deck, made of wood, and pro-
vided with “hats and Montera caps.” This soon disposed of the
first Spanish man-of-war. The second ran aground, the third fell an
easy prey, and matters soon wore a different complexion. Indo-
mitable courage and straight shooting shortly reversed the position of
parties altogether. The pirates “accepted of 15,000 pieces of eight,
and thereupon went quietly away” with twenty times that amount in
jewels, merchandise, and slaves. What were the reflections of the
Governor in his fort and of the captains and crews of the “three
Spanish men-of-war” we are not told.

After a few minor successes Morgan, whose fame was now at its
height, proceeded to the great exploit for which he is famous in his-
tory, to wit, the sack of Panama, perhaps the greatest feat recorded

in all the annals of piracy.
142 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

The fort of Chagres—a preliminary step—was captured in a curious
way. ‘One Pyrate happened to be wounded with an arrow; he
pulled it out and wrapped a little cotton about its bloody point, put
it in his musket, and fired it off to the Castle.” The cotton ignited,
and happening to alight near the enemy’s powder magazine blew it
allup. ‘This soon made them yield,” and on August 18, 1670,
Morgan started, at the head of 1,200 men, upon his last grea
expedition.

We cannot here describe it in detail.

How the pirates marched for days through a country laid waste by
the Spaniards (who had ample notice of their approach), enduring
‘every kind of misery,” so that they were forced to gnaw the leaves of
trees, until at last, when “the high steeple of Panama” appeared in
view, joy filled every buccaneering breast, and they threw their caps
into the air and shrieked aloud, we leave the reader to imagine.
Parties of horse and foot came out to meet them, but “ thought it
not proper” to come within musket range. The great guns of the
city, presumably ill-directed, played upon their camp; but “the
Pyrates, who were used to such kind of musick, pulled out their
satchels and fell to supper.”

In the great engagement which followed, outside the walls, the
Spanish Governor brought into the field 400 horse, 3,000 foot, 200
Indians, and—a curious detail—2,o0o wild bulls, which proved
of less use than the ‘‘ Lucanian cows” of Hannibal.

Two hundred pirates indeed fell, but the town was taken.! An
incredible slaughter (were anything incredible at this stage in Mr.
Leslie’s history) was made of the inhabitants. Finally, 7,000 houses,
“mostly of cedar,’ were burnt down; in fact, the whole town was.

* It is worthy of note that Drake’s expedition (in 1595) had been altogether
deterred from marching to the attack of Panama by ¢he newly erected fort. They
returned on board, and Sir F. Drake dying soon afterwards (Hawkins had died
just before) went back home. Four hundred wild bulls had been tried on Drake
at San Domingo (1585). Collider, p. 72.
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 143.

reduced to ashes. It is painful to learn that “the blame of this
black and barbarous action ” was generally laid on Morgan, although
a justification of him was published by one of the parties actually
concerned, alleging that the act had been done in his absence and
without his orders, and the whole lamentable occurrence was rather
to be attributed, in the author’s opinion, to a certain nasty “re-
vengeful temper” of the Spaniards, prompting them “ to disappoint
the expectations” of brave and industrious buccaneers. The latter,
however, remained in this unhealthy spot some three months, un-
earthing “millions ” of gold and silver from wells and cisterns, where
it had been hidden, and extorting as much more by the processes.
. already described, from such “unhappy captives” as they could
get hold of. Returning to Chagres, we are told they ‘“‘made a
dividend,” larger probably than that of any trading company of
the date.

The profits of this kind of enterprise, which doubtless laid the
foundation (in the seventeenth century and later) of many 4 great
mercantile fortune, were certainly enormous; the most necessary
form of capital being a high degree of moral (or immoral) courage
and a hardy disregard of the finer feelings of civilisation. Commerce,
the wasteful cultivation of the richest soils, was all very well. It was
better to capture a mine, and occupy it—a tenant against will—for
three weeks, while the forced labour of natives brought up eighty
pounds weight of gold dust ; but it was best and simplest of all to
seize ready piles of coined gold, or merchandise packed for transmis-
sion and sale. The principle had been enunciated long before by
Raleigh in his descent on St. Thomas. “This is the true gold mine,
and those who think of any other are fools!” Morgan’s company
brought off from Panama 175 mules’ burden of silver, gold, and other
precious spoils. Each sailor received 200 pieces of eight, and ‘‘it
seems probable ”’ (a reflection in which we may respectfully concur)
that Morgan, who, upon their mutinous demand for more, was glad
to sail off privately with a few trusty friends, “reserved too large a
144 THE PIRATE'S PARADISE,

share for himself.”” In any case, he reached Jamaica with 400,000
pieces in specie.

The fall of this great man from such a pinnacle of renown and
fortune is a lamentable affair which recalls our attention to history.

The question whether piracy was to be encouraged or tabooed was
the problem of home policy occupying the attention of each succes-
sive Governor, and there were eleven Governors in the course of
forty-two years. The ceaseless agitation in favour of “local option”
in this matter perhaps tried these officials as severely as the climate.
To favour piracy was to be popular with ‘the trade,” and with the
enterprising inhabitants of Jamaica in general. To oppose it was to
secure at least the formal approval of the authorities at home. In
fine, “ sharp memorials” from the Spanish authorities addressed at
this period to the English Government had their effect, and piracy
was discouraged for a while. Morgan, who had never acted without a
commission,: refused to prosecute any further designs when the
Governor recalled it. He was indeed threatened vaguely with
punishment for his ‘“pyratical courses” in the past, but “his
money ”—

‘So useful it is to have money. Heigho!”

“saved him at that time.’”” He purchased a plantation and settled
down to a civil career, was made a councillor of Jamaica, and after-
wards knighted by the King. He even became Lieutenant-Governor

1 The editor of the recent new edition of Exquemelin’s famous History of the
Buccaneers (1893) seems to make a mistake, as pointed out by a reviewer in the
Atheneum, in ignoring this important fact. The code of law in force in Jamaica
since the governorship of Sir Thomas Lynch (1682) and abstracted in Leslie’s
account, made it a capital felony ‘‘ for any person to serve in America in an hostile
manner against any foreign Prince, State, or Potentate in amity with the King of
Great Britain without special license under the hand and seal of the Governor.”
It should also be added that blasphemy and profane swearing were subject to a
penalty of £20 for every offence, &c., &c. ‘* You will observe,” naively remarks
the author, ‘‘that whatever bad character be given of this place proceeds not from
want of good regulations, but from a neglect of putting them in execution.”
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 145

of the island; yet, nevertheless, he was called to account, like
Raleigh, for actions sufficiently authorised in years long past, and
sent a prisoner to England, where, unaccused and unheard, he
languished and died, the victim of a ‘“ Court faction.”

A detestation of everything Spanish is a characteristic feeling of
the time and place.

In the good old days of Morgan, laments the author, ‘no Spandard
durst insult a Briton. . . . English colours struck terror into whole
fleets. . . . Now (1738) our brave sailors work in the Spanish
mines, our merchants’ effects are seized. . . . We may complain,
but, good God! we dare not make reprisals.”

Piracy, vigorously suppressed in 1689—Sir Henry Morgan died
in 1690—revived at intervals during the eighteenth century, notably
in the case of the famous “Blackbeard Teach,” who seems by all
accounts to have been the blood-thirstiest of all the buccaneers,
and the true prototype of Captain Flint of Treasure Lsland.

Teach took to piracy in 1716. The peccadilloes of Morgan
pale before his atrocious barbarities. When his crew grew too
large he “marooned” half of them, by the ingenious artifice of a
pretended wreck, upon a desert island, and sailed away with the
more desperate remainder. At mess he laid his pistols on the table
and fired at his officers (or those who had not taken the hint and
retired) merely to maintain an atmosphere of discipline. When
asked if, in case of his death, his wife or any one knew where his
treasures were hid, he replied, ‘Only the d—I and myself know
that.”

Teach was killed a few years later in a hand-to-hand combat
with a lieutenant of the royal navy. But privateering by no means
ceased at his death.

The career of Port Royal was indeed cut short by the appalling
earthquake of June 7, 1692, which seemed to many, as similar
calamities had appeared to the pious Las Casas a century and a
half earlier, the Providential punishment of the iniquity of the

L
146 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

inhabitants. As to that, Providence might have suffered from an
embarras de choix. The wickedness of the West Indies was pro-
verbial. Its historical record for the preceding two centuries had
begun, as we have seen, with a catalogue of the most appalling
outrages and barbarities known to history. Every spot, every settle-
ment, named after all the saints and dogmas known to the Catholic
religion, was stained with blood. The most horrible crimes of
Brasiliano or Teach were child’s play to the foul monstrosities
which the Brevissima Relacion de la Destruction de las Yndias
disclosed to the civilised European world in 1552, especially as
the latter were exercised upon the simple, innocent, and defenceless
natives, the former against a well-armed, though cowardly and
corrupt, race of Europeans, who, when they had the chance, retorted

in kind.

The tone of colonial morals in the eighteenth century does not,
however, quite satisfy the author from whom we have been quoting.
His heart is indeed with the pirates,! which leads him, after singing

1 The exact definition of ‘‘ piracy” is a point of some delicacy to the English
historian, these being matters which it is difficult to regard from a cosmopolitar
point of view. The Spanish historian Mariana naturally speaks of Elizabeth’s
great admiral as ‘‘ e/ pivata Drake.” Sir Walter Raleigh’s is of course the most
interesting case, the practical decision of which turned on a sudden ‘* exigency”
of foreign politics, as is explained very clearly in two of James Howell’s immortal
letters. King James, who would perhaps have appeared as a sleeping partner in
the gold-mine venture, Aad it been successfui (James Howell regarded it as an
‘altogether airy and supposititious mine.” ‘“‘ Who would not promise mines, nay,
mountains of gold, for liberty?”), betrayed his plans for the descent upon the
island of St. Thomas to the Spanish Governor of that island, in whose cabinet
the document, communicated by Raleigh to the King in the strictest confidence, was
afterwards found. Howell is convinced that the Royal Patent should have
protected him, But the influence of the Spanish Ambassador was very strong,
and ‘‘there was more than an overture at that time of a Spanish match.”
Gondomar (letter of March 28, 1618) ‘‘ speaks high language,” asked an audience
of James, saying he had but one word to say ; and, entering the Royal presence
in a towering passion, ‘‘he said only ‘ Pirates, Pirates, Pirates,’ and so departed.”
“I believe he will never give him (Raleigh) over till he hath his head off his
THE PIRATE’S PARADISE. 147

the praises of Sir Henry Morgan, self-made man, buccaneer, states-
man, and martyr, to a reflection which would otherwise appear un-
called for. ‘I would not have you imagine chat J look upon vice as
the origtne of virtue.” There was, indeed, room for a little misappre-
hension. The persons whose constancy, bravery, and other virtues are
here lauded to the skies by the patriotic colonist were more cruel and
bloodthirsty, more repulsive to humanity than the very alligators and
venomous reptiles of their adopted home, while the moral atmosphere
of the insular aristocracy, described as ‘“‘ haughty” in disposition,
leading the life of petty despots, and despising all intelligent industry,
was even more unhealthy than the climatic conditions which en-
couraged it. But when our author, carried away by an academic
indignation against the dead and gone buccaneers, exclaims, ‘No!
Such principles I look upon as base, and the dazzling consequences of
them I view with an eye of equal horror,” we can hardly take his
assurance au pied de la lettre. The ‘‘dazzling consequences” were
highly profitable to Jamaica. The hero of Panama, whom John

shoulders.” Raleigh was executed October 29, 1618, although Queen Anne of
Denmark wrote a special letter to her ‘* kind dog” the Duke of Buckingham, to
intercede for him. (Dalrymple, A/emorials, 1762, p. 58.)

It was funny, observes Howell, ‘‘that the same man should be condemned for
being a friend to the Spaniards, and lose his head, under the same sentence, for
being their enemy.”

The richest of all Spanish mines—according to the author just quoted—z.e. those
in Potosi, only paid 6 per cent. about the middle of the seventeenth century. But
this fact only rendered the richly-laden Acapulco still more attractive. ‘‘ Spanish
galleons not yet in sight” is the constant refrain of Anson and other pious
navigators of the eighteenth century, what time scores of ‘* waggon loads” of gold
and jewels went up from Bristol to the Bank, and a large proportion of our
“¢ Pyrates” must have found employment in more legitimate maritime enterprises.
Their irregular service had long been the best training school of an effective
marine. The first Van Tromp himself (Martin, 1597-1653) began as ‘‘ cabin-boy
to an English pirate, who had killed his father, and taken the Dutch man-of-war
of which he was captain.” See Samuel Colliber’s Critical History of English Sea
Affairs (2nd ed. 8vo, 1739) arare and valuable work compiled from French and

Dutch sources.
12
148 THE PIRATE’S PARADISE.

Evelyn (meeting him at Lord Berkeley’s in October 1674) naturally
compared with Sir Francis Drake, was the sort of person whom cir-
cumstances seemed at the time, and for long after, imperiously to
require “to keep both the Spaniards and the French in awe.” Their
‘“insolence,” especially the former’s, exasperated a race conscious of
superior ability, character, and physique. Nor had cosmopolitan
theories of the immorality of a policy of “ annexation” yet begun to
influence the growth of the empire. Peace, therefore—not undis-
turbed by domestic trouble, for in 1735-6 the island had been in
arms for nine months together against the rebellious negroes, finally
conciliated by the humaner policy of Hon. Edward Trelawny, the
last Governor mentioned—was often endured with impatience.

With 1739 came the destruction, by Admiral Vernon, of Porto
Bello—when Commodore Browne fired 400 shots in twenty-five
minutes against the castle—and with the recrudescence of war the
spirits of the colony revived. Mr. Leslie concludes his little
volume in a happier tone :—

“The Privateers have had a wonderful success, and again (if the
war continues) Jamaica will be the richest spot in the universe.”

 

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A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”
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‘Title-page from Rob. Gaguin’s Comfendium (of French History, from Pharamond, with the
additions, to 1491)—J/mpressit rursus diligens ac peritus chalcographus A athonins bone-

mere in zuclyto aristorune 87 mnasio .

. A.D. I5T4.

Sm. 8vo. The text of this work

begins ‘‘ Franci (ut plerzeque alia: nationes) a Trojanis prodiisse gloriantur. ’
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

History is the great Looking-glass through which we may behold with
ancestral eyes the various actions of ages past, and the odd accidents that attend
time, discern the different humours of men, and feel the pulse of former times.

JAMEs Howe...

Ayez les choses de la premiére main, puisez a la source ; les premiers com-

mentateurs se sont trouvés dans le cas ot je désire que vous soyez.
La Bruvire.

@ RIGINAL authorities” are things with the import-
ance of which we have all of us, since the modern
renaissance of criticism and scholarship, been made
thoroughly acquainted.

In the ideal text-book of nineteenth-century edu-
cation we walk, so to speak, upon a very mosaic of
citations through galleries of genuine antiquities, carefully selected
and arranged to give us the due proportion of contemporary feeling
and local colour, while the mind of the historian of the higher order
represents, one may respectfully presume, a sort of refined and con-
centrated essence of everything that was ever said or done in the
period he has made his own, but lightly flavoured with his ‘“ personal

 

equation.”

This was not always so; not, for example, in the more conven-
tional days of the eighteenth century, during which history, even when
composed by the “person of quality,” was apt to become a mere
véichauffé of respectable but scantily examined traditions, of the
ideas which it was thought proper to hold of certain famous epochs
1§2 A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.”

and personages with whom the common world could not in due
respect claim a very intimate acquaintance.

Gibbon, indeed, set a splendid example of telling us, with the
sociable enthusiasm of a lover of books, where he got the materials
used in building that great “ bridge from the old world to the new,”
which is to most of us yet the main highway across the dark forests.
and dismal swamps of the early Middle Ages. But to many a histo-
rian of Gibbon’s date, and still more to historians of a preceding
generation, “ authorities” were a mystery concerning only the learned
author.

And their use was sometimes a matter of indifference, and some-
times of serious fraud. Did not Johnson himself, while sneering at
the “verbiage ” of Robertson and the “ foppery ” of Dalrymple, prefer
Dr. Goldsmith’s Matural History simply on the ground that (having
been constructed, at the great lexicographer’s own suggestion, without
reference to facts) it more closely resembled a ‘Persian romance” ?
And even if “facts” and ‘“ authorities” were to hand, their treatment
was not that to which we are accustomed. Thus when Archdeacon
Coxe forwarded the Oxford and Townshend papers to Dr. Somer-
ville, the historian of the reign of Queen Anne, the favour was coupled
with a suggestion that the proprietors of the documents would be
glad if he (Dr. S.) could see his way, by their evidence, to justify the
Whig MeN Jor rejecting the terms of peace offered by Louis XIV.
iz 1707-9... The conscientious historian came to a quite opposite
conclusion, yet suppressed a note on the ground that it was indeli-
cate to criminate statesmen upon evidence supplied by their de-
scendants! This, at such a proximity of date, would be natural
enough, but none the less delusive to posterity. But the truth is that
in the eighteenth century, though the most casual of historians.
would probably have asked for a few “ papers” to give an antiquarian
flavour to his work—just as Goldsmith was on the point of studying
Natural History until warned by the learned Doctor of the respon-

1 Somerville’s Hist. of his own Time, 8vo, 1861, p. 290.
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘* MEMOIRS.” 153

sibility this would involve—the modern critical spirit, that which
inspires the very latest German (or American) explorer into Venetian
archives, was almost unknown, and though educated writers might
know that “original authorities” ought.to be “consulted,” few
persons in those days of imperfect communication had a very clear
idea what or where those authorities might be.

Still, as the gentle reader in all ages craved for personal and
domestic details, these had often to be supplied either from a tradi-
tional store of anecdotes, or out of the writer’s own head. Hence
the large space occupied by wegation in the best and most authorita-
tive modern histories.

Half the characteristics of the most famous personages of preceding
generations, as we learnt them in our youth, have now to be re-
modelled or cast aside. For we are not only daily discovering new
sources, new archives, rescuing priceless family papers, hitherto latent
in lofts, from the perusal of “opici mures,” cataloguing imperfectly
examined volumes, and arranging neglected libraries, but daily cor-
recting the errors and imperfections of the vast mass of older literature
which (sometimes because it is so much better written) we still find
it difficult not to read.

Thus even in an epitome,! the most wondrous with which we are
acquainted in an age of handbooks and abridgments, we are obliged
to be told that Otto II. never fought at Basentello, nor Lucullus at
Artaxata, that Cleon was not a tanner, but a capitalist and owner of
factories (this sounds rather too much like a modern political
‘explanation ”), and that Sulla (not Sylla) did xoé die of the so-called
Phthiriasis. ‘The individual reader may be driven to exclaim, “I
never said he ad.” It is no matter, others have. And these notes

Professor Karl Ploetz’s Epitome of History, Ancient, Mediaval and Modern,
translated by Professor Tillinghast, of Harvard, U.S.A., with a magnificent
index, carries the reader with perfect safety but almost terrifying rapidity, from the
earliest Pyramids to the new Japanese constitution of 1882! An invaluable work,
with references to the best modern authorities.
154 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

-do not mean that recent research has unearthed the private accounts
-of “ Cleon and Co.,” or that Sulla (like the late Mr. Henry Matthews,
-or Montaigne in Italy) left behind him the Diary of au Lnvalid, just
printed at Oxford or Berlin. It only means that, owing to the
intellectual renaissance aforesaid of the so-called nineteenth cen-
tury (the hackneyed phrase itself surely indicates our attitude of
“Historic doubt” ?) we now know, like Socrates, that we do not
Anow a great deal which our ancestors, in the dark ages and even the
last generation, believed with scarcely an effort.

But in these more enlightened days all such darkness and
even a good deal of doubt has been chased away, and every Ge-
schichtliche Quelle rendered as accessible as possible to the thirsting
student.

How vastly moreover is our positive knowledge increased by the
publication of the “original text unabridged,” or, as in the case of
the very latest version of the Journal of Mr. Samuel Pepys, a/mos¢
“‘ unabridged edition.”

“We knew already,” writes a serious reviewer of the first instal-
ment of this work, which in truth seemed to contain no new fact of
much greater importance than this, “that on January 4, 1659-60,
‘It snowed hard all the morning, and my nose was much swelled
with cold,’ but the entry at the close of the day was wanting. ‘ Home,
and so to bed, but much troubled with my nose, whith was much
swelled.” Specialists in English history then, who have during fifty
years been tormented with doubts as to whether the Secretary of the
Admiralty did or did not go to bed on the evening of ‘January 4
1659-60,” may now seek their respective couches in peace. Nay,
they know more, as much as any courtier could have wished to know
-of the Grand Monarque, that a nose swelled on that eventful morning
-continued—so little change have two centuries and a “new style”
wrought in human nature—to trouble its methodical owner until
nightfall !

Yet we have not ai/ the Diary of Mr. Pepys—of Mr Pepys who
A MEDLEY OF ‘ MEMOIRS.” 155

occupies half a page in telling us that a man told him nothing on
April 7, 1664—even yet, for though much that is questionable has
been’ printed, “certain grosser improprieties have been left out,” (!)
and the reader is still a victim to the harassing anxiety, pathetically
referred to by the reviewer, that “something is being kept from
him.” Alas! many things; but oh! how full of hope and promise
for the higher education of the future is this passionate appetite for
a fulness of knowledge. Or shall we admit that even with regard
to ‘‘complete” texts, the sagacious maxim sometimes holds good,
““ Magne tmmo maxima sapientia est quedam a@guo animo nescire
velle” ?

The general reader of the nineteenth century, among his other
inestimable advantages, lives in a very atmosphere of editorial
comment. There is not a great classic that might not be buried
under a mountain of works written upon or round about it, any one of
which some expert or other will generally assure the tyro that he
ought to read, and with all of which the critical *‘ authority” of the
day must, we fear, be presumed to have a “bowing,” or at least a
“« dagger-drawing,” acquaintance. Thus the popular exposition of even
the most famous of highly intellectual works is apt to become more
appreciated than the “ original.” But it is not so with the best samples
of the “ original memoir.” As a species of “ reading,” this literature
stands by itself. It goeth down like an oyster, and sticketh in the
mind like the scandal of which—such is human nature—it is so
largely composed. It has, indeed, important advantages, not only
over obscurer “ original works,” but over the history which is specially
addressed by moderns to moderns.

In our appetite for “private views” of life, for familiar letters,
notes, journals e¢ hoc genus omne, is expressed a primeval human
instinct—the ardent desire to know the affairs of other people as
distinguished from things which the historian is anxious to tell us—
rather ostentatiously—for our good. And, mere curiosity apart,
uncorrupted humanity retains a deep suspicion of all the prepared

.
156 A MEDLEY OF ‘“‘ MEMOIRS.”

stories, concocted explanations, analogies, and apologies often dis-
guised as histories. Does not Mr, Thackeray tell us that he believed
no autobiographies but those of Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, of York,
and his kind, and that fiction (here spoke the novelist) carried most
“truth in solution” 2 But almost the earliest works of our Aryan
ancestors were concocted with a religious and political purpose, and
even modern historians sometimes have prejudices. So,” it may be
rejoined, “has the memoir writer.” Most true ; but the prejudices of
the modern are too “ more than kin and less than kind” to our own
to be, yet, of great interest to us. While, of original writers (who are
not thinking about us) even the contradictions, as Bolingbroke says,
are instructive.! Their awfullest lies convey more striking truth than
the platitudes of a writer of our own generation. Moreover, to grasp at
a deeper reason, man, even nineteenth-century man, is by nature as
profoundly diffident as he is gregarious. He may “talk tall” among
a dense population of his contemporaries, but the fact is that just as
the simple-minded “masses” delight to learn, by means of the in-
terviewer, that their wealthy, learned, and high-born contemporaries
resemble them in divers otherwise insignificant particulars, so the
most cultured and independent agnostic of us all is, in his secret
heart, vastly reassured by the knowledge that Charlemagne took an
apple and a glass of water and went to sleep after luncheon ; or that
Petrarch walked about the streets of Avignon in painfully tight boots,
fearing lest the wind should blow his hair out of curl.? We like to
know that other people are not really different from, nor (softo
voce, be it said) much better than, ourselves, and the detailed

1 Bolingbroke’s notes Ov the Study and Use of History (8vo, Cadell, 1779),
which also embrace a valuable memoir of his time, have, one is glad to see, been
recently reprinted in a cheap pocket edition.

2 The Abbé de Sade’s “‘ copious, original, and entertaining” Afémoires p. s. &
la Vie de F. Pétrarque (3 vols. 4to, Amst. 1764), so freely utilized by Gibbon, is
an old-fashioned labour of love, and genealogical pride (though the portrait of Dr.
Sade’s ancestress, Laura is not such as to rouse admiration), collecting a mass of
original matter to which he should have added an index.
A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.” 157

evidences of these simple truths are just what the memoir-writer
preserves for us, whether he writes about himself or about other
people.

The memoir, again, as distinguished from the history, which is the
sublimated essence of all such QueZ/en, gives us, when judiciously
studied, what lawyers call a case-knowledge of history, a thing different
in kind from the grasp of “ general principles,” but within its range
more satisfying and reliable. Take, for instance, an original letter—
and letters (not letters like those in which Mrs. Chapone strove to
form the character of the “ young person”’) are often but a detached
and more instantaneous variety of memoir—-take several typical
examples which chance to be at hand,—the Emperor Julian’s angry
mandate for the exile of St. Athanasius ;! Charles 1X.’s official explana-
tion of the “regrettable ” events of August 24th, 15723? Montesquieu’s
passing remark on the decay of Spanish and the growth of British
empire ;3 Maximilian the Great’s confidential and ungrammatical com-
munication to Margaret of Austria, announcing his intention to
reform, and, if he could raise the necessary funds, run for the
Papacy ;* Theodore Beza’s instinctive apology for theder - sion ofa

1 Juliani Imperatoris Opera, 8vo, Parisiis, 1583, p. 157.

2 Appended, with other documents, to Hotman’s account of the massacre (see
p. 44). A propos of the same episode, it is in the Letters of the famous Cardinal
d’Ossat (p. 687 of the 8vo ed., Paris, 1627) that we find recorded the historically
invaluable remark of Cardinal Alessandrino—on hearing the news of the massacre
—** Loué soit Dieu, le Roy de France m’a tenu promesse !”

3 «Que dites vous des Anglois? . . . . c’est une grande baleine:

‘Et latum sub pectore possidet zequor.’
La Reine d’Espagne a appris 4 Europe un grand secret, c'est que Zes Indes qu'on
croyoit attachées & PEspagne par cent mille chaines, ne tiennent quad un fil.”—
Montesquieu, Lettres Familitres (ed. par ? Abbé de Guasco). 8vo. Florence. 1767.
P. 15 (Mar. 6, 1740), and see p. 134.

In another passage, the author of the Zsgrit des Lois refers in a light-hearted
manner to the improbability of kings reading his book, which Voltaire, he tells us,
“‘ was too clever to understand.”

4 Lettres et Mémoires de Louis XII. &c. &c. Ed, Godefroy. 4 vols.

8vo.
1712. (IV.)
158 A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.”

heretic, “‘exustus est sane, sed sero”; or the picture of a very pretty
literary quarrel, handed down by the Cavalier Marino.2 Do not
these photograph for us with inimitable effect, an attitude, an at-
mosphere, a stage of civilisation, a striking scene never more to be
recalled, and only now realisable through that: wondrous telescope—
the printed book ?

The memoir is of course not to be too nicely distinguished from the
history. The “Memoirs” of Philip de Comines range from intimate
personality to the profoundest diplomacy of the time. Duclos’s
invaluable AZémoires Secrets sur les Regnes de Louis XIV. et XV.
(library edition, 2 vols. 1791) represent rather the collected notes
and reflections of a serious historian upon the fearfully interesting
period during which ripened and matured ‘the red fruit of an old

idolatry.”
The genuine memoir is intensely, if not grossly, personal, and does.

not aspire to the “dignity of history.” But what is the ‘dignity of
history”? The late Mr. Charles Kingsley thought it could not be
denied to his account of the poaching affray in Yeast (itself a fictitious
memoir carrying a good deal of ‘truth in solution”) by “any gentle-
man who had had his head among the gunstocks for a few minutes.”
If not, one felt that one could get on without it. The early chronicler
did, and, since his chronicle is also as often as not a memoir, must
here have a kindly word. In ages when the flame of thought burned
but dimly, and writing for pleasure was apparently unknown, we owe
all that we have to this well-meaning and laborious person. He has
been lightly accused of a “crude voracity for fact” because forsooth
he has not always nicely weighed the proportionate interest of a com-.
plicated political crisis and the alleged birth in some remote county
of a puppy with three heads, or because the Saxon chronicle sums
up the national affairs of a twelvemonth long preceding what is known

1 Epistolarum Theologicarum, Liber unus. Genevie, 8vo, 1573, p. 10. This
is a rare and interesting volume.
2 Lettere gravt argute e famiitari, 12mo, 1673.
A MEDLEY OF ‘ MEMOIRS.” 159

as “the Oxford Movement” in the brief and pithy sentence—“‘ No
one went to Rome this year.” A more serious charge is the heavy
burden that lay upon these our first historians of “totalling up” in a
lengthy compendium all that they believed to have happened from
the creation to the beginning of their own experience. The estimable
Gregory of Tours has indeed given us a unique and priceless picture:
of the Merovingian courts, but why did the Bishop, unlike our own
Venerable Bede, stuff his precious little volume with so much that would
have been better included in one of his hagiological works? Sanguin-.
ary and horrible anecdotes, too, are their bane. Saxo the grammarian
(who did not, as the eminent Shakespeare-Bacon controversialist sup-
posed, write in Danish !), however he may fall short of historic “ dig-
nity,”’ leaves us in no doubt as to how the Prince of Denmark (Amloda
—the madman, or Amleth, as the chronicler calls him, though ‘“we,’”
as Mr. Podsnap would explain ‘‘say Hamlet,” putting the “h” at
the other end) disposed of the body of Polonius. It was given to.
the pigs; but that is another, and a painfully medieval, story.®
Let us begin at the beginning. Has any one yet published a

! On looking back to this entry I find that I had slightly underrated its import--
ance. The full text is ‘‘ 47. 889. This year no one went to Rome, except two
couriers whom King Alfred sent with letters (!).”—Chronicon Saxonicum. Ed.
Gibson, 4to, 1692, p. 90.

Severe weather distinguishing any particular year is constantly noted by the
early annalists: and a liberal amount of space, as we should expect, is usually
given to remarkable phenomena of natural or supernatural history. See the enter-
taining account given by Matthew Paris—the best and most instructive of our
chroniclers—of a tremendous and unheard-of conflict between whales and other
marine monsters on the east coast (av. 1240), where eleven huge dead carcases
were cast up by the sea.” Finally an enormous whale made up the Thames
estuary, and with difficulty got between the piles of London Bridge. It was
pursued by a large number of sailors in boats as far as a certain ‘‘manerium Regis
quod Afortelac dicitur,” where there was an exciting finish, and the monster:
was killed with some difficulty. A minor poet of the day wrote a jocose epigram on
the subject in Leonine verse. Matt. Paris, H7storda Afajor, fol. 1571, p. 733.

2 Saxonis Grammatict Historia Danica, Ed. Miiller und Velschow (a superbly
printed edition), 4to, Hafnice, 1839, p. 138, et sey.
160 A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.”

list of the ‘best hundred books” of the kind we are here con-
sidering ?

The deservedly respected, if occasionally tiresome, Xenophon! would
appear to be one of the first of European memoir writers. Soldier,
sportsman, and Z#térateur, his writings include all interests military,
social, and political. In his Memorabilia he plays the part of a
more dignified Boswell to the greatest man of his age, the martyred
philosopher by whose side he fought at the Battle of Delium in 424
B.c. ; and his only too well-known Azadasis—for all its monotonous
breakfasts and ‘ parasangs ’’— can only be compared to the accounts
by La Baume or Ségur of the more disastrous Napoleonic retreat
from Moscow.? Julius Czesar’s memoirs of his own campaigns were,
we know, the favourite reading of the French Emperor, and the com-
mentaries of both monarchs are unreliable, where they are so, for
very similar reasons, since, as a sage critic has remarked, a know-
ledge of the truth does not always imply a desire to tell it. To omit
classic historians who have been the model of all subsequent ages,
the Lives of Emperors by Suetonius (68—116 a.p.) form a series
of priceless historical cameos the suppression of which would
certainly have left human nature higher than it now stands in public
estimation. The letters of the younger Pliny (belonging to the same
period) supply, quite incidentally, unique materials to history. In

1 Thucydides is, of course, the prototype of the dignified historian. In Herodotus,
on the other hand, there is more of the digressive story-loving Frossardian
chronicle, and of the true ‘* Memoir of my Life and Times.” ‘‘ Imagine,” says
a modern French historian, ‘‘ Marco Polo, Joinville, and the Arabian Nights mixed
up and thrown into the form of a prose Odyssey, and you have the History of
Herodotus.”

® Eugene La Baume (whose account is less known than that of Ségur) appears
in his preface (Relation Complete de la Campagne de Russie, &c. 6me ed. corrigée
&c., Paris, 1820) as quite the ideal contemporary memoir-writer. His record of
events was written up, he tells us, day by day; the knife that helped him to his
horse-flesh dinner served also to cut his crowquill pens. The sack of Moscow he
described by the light of the conflagration, and for ink and inkstand he had often
but a hand, ul of gunpowder mixed with snow water !
A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.” 161

the well-known letter in the tenth book, Secundus writes to Trajan
of the early Christians (from Bithynia late in 112 A.D.) much as an
Eastbourne magistrate might communicate with the Home Secretary
on the subject of the “Salvation Army.”! And as an intimate and
finished personal record these letters surpass anything in Latin
literature. Interspersed with every variety of detail of common life,
social, professional, and even sporting (“we shall laugh,” he thinks,
“to hear that he has killed three wild boars ;”’ and so we do), with
capital stories told with equal gusto and good temper, they give us
the whole tone of a civilisation, the standard of its morality (Pliny’s
slaves we may be sure were better off than many servants in the
eighteenth century), and in fine the picture of an age surprisingly like
our own, when post-horses were a government monopoly (as they
are still in the “ Playground of Europe’’), and fire brigades were
regarded in the light of dangerous political associations, as they
quite recently were in the United States.?

We are not forgetting Cicero, the greatest writer of the greatest
age in Roman history, of which his long series of Epistole ad
familiares (sometimes miscalled LEpistole familiares) and others,
should have provided us with the most complete and intimate picture.
It was M. Philaréte Chasles? who first discovered Cicero to be an
“ overrated man.” Ought we to regret that a man so refined, so want-
ing in brute courage, lived in an age when decision of character was so

_1 The history of the MS. of Pliny’s celebrated letter is very remarkable. Dis-
covered at Paris in 1500, used by several persons and then lost (apparently in
Italy) in 1508, it has never been seen since. V. Professor Ramsay’s Church in
the Roman Empire. 1894. Ch. x., note.

2 A good example, perhaps, of history repeating itself, see Nichols, Forty Years
of American Life (the author’s own time). Longmans, 1874, p. 312. “This
position (that of the Irish ‘boss’ of a volunteer fire company) as leader of
a hundred rough and ready young men was not without its influence. They all
had votes; and in case of need could vote more than once. What was more
important they could show fight, and keep others from voting.”

3 Ktudes sur 1 Antiquité . . et sur les phases de Phist. littéraire (a most
entertaining miscellany), Paris, 1847.

M
162 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

imperiously necessary, and when to be decided meant, most probably,
to be unscrupulous? ‘Political exigencies’? such as that which
rendered the greatest of orators so ready to become the ally of
Catiline and to defend the latter against his own charges of “rapine
and plunder” might have pursued the painfully self-conscious, the
“verbose and sophistical” rhetorician even into our own peace-
ful days. It is inevitably matter of regret that his vanity, his acute
sense of his own merits and of his own sufferings prevented him see-
ing clearly even all that was going on around him; and that he was
more grieved, as M. Chasles complains, by the loss of a Greek curio
than by the death of his dourgeozs father.

But let us rather be thankful for what we have, for these inevitable
confidential effusions of a cultivated gentleman, fallen among a
generation of brigands and cut-throats, of a humanely sociable man
torn this way and that by human ambitions and human weaknesses,
for these confessions ranging from the highest to the meanest of
human interests, nor regret that the self-revelation, always interest-
ing and often absorbing is now and then so acutely pathetic.

Ifa great, a strong man would never have confided to us his
vacillations between heroism and chicanery, his half-hearted decision
at a very critical moment, to make friends with Cesar, in order to
make him less dangerous (si eum mitiorem reddo .. num obsum?)
let us remember that a great and strong man would have perhaps
left us nothing more expansive, nothing more satisfying to human
curiosity than—Cezsar’s Commentaries.

And the “First Napoleon ” (gace Dr. Mommsen), did he smile to
himself when the greatest, or at least the most eloquent statesman of
the day addressed him, in one of those eloquent letters, as his
“second self”? When he returned Cicero’s verses with the com-
plimentary assurance that he “had never read anything finer in
Greek,” was he aware that the effusive //térateur who strove so
hard to oppose “arms with words,” described him alternately as
a “d——d brigand” (perditus latro) and “the noblest and best of
A MEDLEY OF ‘ MEMOIRS.” 163

men,” according to the fluctuations of that epidemic of the day, the
terrores Cesariant? An answer may be conjectured from the few
words of his dropped about the pages of this voluminous corre-
spondence.

But whatever the agonising exigencies of the greatest crisis in the
world’s history made it advisable or inevitable for the man of words
to express, from the proudest and vainest exultation to the bitterest
remorse and despair, how perfect throughout is the wondrous style,
—the model of all subsequent generations—lucid, racy, fluent, never
deranged, and ifisometimes condensed (breviloguentem me tempus
ipsum facit) by the acutest suffering, consoling itself in the torments
of anxiety by a line or two from Homer, and when most panic-
stricken by the Napoleonic celerity of Czesar, finding time to discuss
in a Greek exercise the question whether a patriot might or might

For several centuries after the classic age, there is a plentiful
lack of communicative and confidential literature. Not that such
epithets are inapplicable, for example, to the miscellanies of
Aulus Gellius (143), or Macrobius (0d. 420). But these classical
and justly popular works, if not absolutely devoid of contemporary
anecdote and history,! draw most of their subject-matter from
earlier original sources. The horny Latin of Sidonius Apollinaris
(436-488 a.D.) which it is yet a pleasure to read in Sirmond’s
splendid library edition (4to, 1652), conceals much _ interesting
details of Saxon pirates and country life of Gaul in the fifth
century when, after all, men studied, hunted, dallied with classics in
the library, and dined sharp by the clepsydra quite unconscious that
they lived in one of the ‘“‘dark ages.” Such darkness is, however,

1 Such e.g. as the story told by Gellius of the two grammarians he left arguing
(Woctes Attice xiv.) about the vocative case of egregiws. Macrobius tells some
good stories of the wit of Augustus and other persons, mostly at second or third
hand. Both the Woctes and the Saturnalia (which borrows a good deal from it)
are chiefly literary and critical. Of the first there is a good Elzevir (1651) and of
the latter a particularly fine ‘‘ Variorum ” ed. Lugd. Bat. 1670.

M 2
164 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

especially among the ruins of the Western Empire, none the less
real. The curious and sociable reader wanders about in its gloomy
shades finding scarce a “soul” to talk to but fierce ascetics denounc-
ing the world, and the flesh, and pious monks prattling of Blessed
Martin’s miracles, or the absurd conceit of the Donatists.?

1 See for example the correspondence of Nilus, an Eremite of Mount Sinai and
pupil of St. Chrysostom, edited in a sumptuous quarto by Pierre Possin, Jesuit (Gr. -
Lat. Paris, 1657). In these lucubrations (see Ep. 48) asceticism is almost carried
to the point of a preference for temptation and misery. If such letters are almost
devoid, vulgarly speaking, of human interest, they show a far more intimate know-
ledge of the habits and principles of the Evil One than was ever attained by his
pretentious biographers of later times. On the other hand Sulpicius Severus (who
died about 410 A.D.) isa charming writer of gentle and humane sensibilities. See his

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From title-page of Delibatio Hist. Africane Ecclesiastice. Parisiis ap. Mich. Sonnium,
sub scuto Basiliensi, via Jacobeea. 1569.

Opera (Life of the Blessed Martin, &c.). 8vo. Elzevir. 1665. Synesius, the sporting
Bishop, is known to every reader of Ayfatia, and his letters (Paris, 1605) deal
as much with weddings, funerals, worthless servants, and valuable horses, as
might the memoirs of a modern Dean of good family. As to the Donatists, let
us recommend to the reader a delightful little* volume published by Sonnius at
Paris in 1569, entitled Dedibatio Historie Africana, and containing the celebrated
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.” 165

The materials for history, even of private life, are not perhaps so
very deficient in the third, and still less in the fourth century, A.D.,
but their unearthing requires more varied research. We turn of
course in the first instance, to professed historians such as Ammianus
Marcellinus (320-390), and the minor authors collected under the
title of “ Augustan ” writers. But poetry, panegyric, and religious
controversy (not too rigidly confined to their own subject-matters)
disguise, in these ages of the world, matters of more real’ human
interest. Thus the eight books of Salvianus of Marseilles (390-484)
De Gubernatione Dei, consist largely of indignant diatribes on the
corrupt civilisation of the great cities of the Empire.

Poetry, the reader might naturally be tempted to study for its
own sake—Ausonius, Prudentius, and above all Claudian, from
whom Mr. Bryce borrows those few eloquent lines (Ode on Stilicho’s
Second Consulship, v. 129) which paint the imperial feeling of the
day, almost as well as Dante’s famous letter! does for.a period nine
hundred years later.

Cecilius, author of that curious memoir Ox the Deaths (not to

works of Optatus (0d. 384) and of Victor of Utica (0d. c. 487) upon the religious
‘controversies and the persecutions of the time.

A propos of such early collections of contemporary chronicles and memoirs, one
of the best and most useful, a little volume rarely to be found, and well worth a
few francs, is the Annalium & Historie Francorum Scriptores coetanet XII.
&e. ex Bibliotheca P. Pithzi. 8vo. Francofurti. 1594. This contains’a most
valuable selection of records from the eighth to the tenth century, several im-
portant accounts of the life and coronation of Charles the Great, Abbo Levita’s
metrical history of the Siege of Paris by the Northmen in 886, and the chronicle
of Nithard containing (p. 473) the well-known forms of oath sworn (842 A.D.) by
Louis of France and Charles of Germany respectively, which supply such in-
valuable specimens of the nascent French and German languages. ‘‘ Annales
Francorum Pithei,” says a redoubtable critic, ‘‘ Ze bon livre, si vous voyez le
mien vous verriez comme je l’ay manié.”—Scaligerana, p. 266.

1 See Epistole edite e inedite di Dante Alighieri, edited, with the treatise ‘‘ Dell’
Acqua e della Terra” by Alessandro Torri. 8vo. Livorno, 1842 (an edition not
to be found in the British Museum, 1894). -
166 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS,”

mention the abominable and wicked lives) of Persecutors! (the com-
pleteness of which is secured by the omission of persecutors who
didn't die), and Libanius, the eloquent orator, and popular lecturer,
contribute, in spite of much dull and formal waste of words, to
make real for us certain societies and individuals. Among early
letter-writers, and from our present point of view, a respectable place
must be given to Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the contemporary
of Augustine, Jerome and Ambrosius, Prefect of Rome, and last of
the professed defenders of Paganism. The ten books of Symmachus,
whose contemporaries regarded him and who seems to have regarded
himself as a second Pliny, were reprinted and still circulated in an
attractive Elzevir edition, 12mo, 1653.

The first great ‘‘Secret History,” prototype of so many a sup-
pressed or unpublished “ original authority,” appeared, as we might
expect, at the great centre of civilisation in the sixth century, Con-
stantinople, and remains, as every reader of Zhe Decline and Fall
is aware, about the most astonishing memoir ever given, even by
private circulation, toa shocked and delighted public. This work
known as the Arcana Historia, or Anecdotes, of Procopius might well
have been called “The Scandalous Chronicle of Justinian and
Theodora,” the celebrated Emperor and Empress whom it has
branded with something like eternal ridicule and infamy. Procopius
of Czsarea (who was secretary to the ill-fated Belisarius, and died in
the same year as Justinian, 565 a.p.) had published a whole series.
of historical works treating in a complimentary, nay, flattering style,
the military and civil achievements of the world-renowned law-
giver, but it was known that there existed or had existed an import-
ant supplement to these in the form of a secret history. Baronius,
in his £eclestastical Annals, regrets its loss, but the manuscript was

1 Liber de Mortzbus Persecutorum, hactenus Lactantio ascriptus, with facsimile
of MS.—another excellent ‘‘ Variorum” ed. 8vo. Parisiis. 1710. For citations.
from the interesting works of Libanius (314-390 A.D.) De vité sud and Pro templis
an appeal against Christian persecution) see Lecky’s A7st. of Rationalism, vol. ii.
A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.” 167

then actually lying on the shelves of the Vatican library of which the
annalist himself had charge, and was first published some years after
his death (Zugdunt, fol. 1623). Our own copy of this fine edition,!
edited by the learned Nicolo Alemanni, belonged to Alexander
Boswell, who bought it at Paris in 1729 for £3. The printer’s
device is, by a curious coincidence, an immense rising sun.

No sun that ever rose diffused a more startling light upon imperial
affairs than this work. ‘“ The Axecdota of Procopius, compared with
the former works of the same author, appears,” to one of Gibbon’s
latest editors, “che basest and most disgraceful work in literature.”
But the horrified reader can hardly repress a smile, so complete is the
dichotomy of the author.

The “glorious wars’ (of the history circulated under the august
nose of Justinian) here become “useless and wanton massacres.”
The “ buildings” so belauded as monuments of the great emperor and
his admirable queen become works of vain prodigality and useless
ostentation. ‘I doubt,” concludes Dean Milman, “ whether Gibbon
has made sufficient allowance for the malignity of the Anecdota.”?
But although it may be literally true that the appalling profligacy of
Theodora’s early life “rests entirely on this virulent libel,” and
although the scoffing Gibbon is certainly prone to think evil, there
is really no evidence to answer an author who, whatever his motives,
was clearly himself acquainted with a generation of which hardly any
“libel” can be accounted incredible. Assuming so much, even if the
author of the Amecdofa writes now and then in a tone of passion,
does that much affect his credit? There were facts of which, we can
well believe, he could not have survived the publication, and which

1 Purchased for 2s. 6¢., which shows that not all ‘‘ first editions” continue to rise in
price. Engravings of a medal, and a portrait of Theodora will be found in the notes.
Alemanni (see note in Ze Decline and Fall) expurgated a few lines of the text.

2 The editors of Gibbon, however, do not suggest, as at least one eminent
historian has since suggested, that the work is a (contemporary) forgery, which.
however, it is admitted, would little affect its credit as an account of social
(and theatrical) manners.
168 A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.”

yet deserved, as he tells us, to be recorded, for the instruction and
warning of all future tyrants. The anecdotist, with whom the
cynical historian chuckles up and down his scandal-laden page,
accordingly proceeds to tell us among infinitely more shocking
things that Justinian was a “stupid ass” whose silliness was only
equalled by his wickedness. He represents the great lawgiver and his
consort, “ Demonodora,” as “two fiends who had assumed human
form for the destruction of mankind,”—which is very much the sort of
thing that Shelley felt and wrote about Lord Castlereagh. At the
same time he has the fairness—or, must we say the malevolence ?—to ,
mention that the renowned jurisconsult (and atheist) Tribonian
when sitting on the bench at the emperor’s side expressed the
gravest anxiety lest his imperial colleague “ should be snatched up to
Heaven without a moment’s warning, on account of his unique piety !”

Both the above estimates of the great lawgiver cannot be correct,
and if imperial courtiers were in the habit of saying that sort of
thing, we can hardly wonder at a few exaggerations on the other side.
The author, even when recounting that a monk once observed Satan
himself in the likeness of Justinian, occupying the imperial throne—
assures us that he and his friends quite believed this and all the
other stories. If so, one can only say that (whether we believe
them or not) he was quite right in committing his impressions to
paper. In one way or another they cannot fail to be instructive.

Fortunately for poor human nature, the best as well as the worst of
monarchs have had attentive biographers.

The faithful Eginhart, whose plain unvarnished tale of the disastrous
retreat from Roncesvalles (celebrated from the opposite point of view
in one of the most ancient Basque ballads),! is the kernel of all the

1 See Fr. Michel, Ze Pays Basgue, 1857 (‘‘ rare, 20 fr.” Claudin), where the text
(in which many intelligible Romance words occur) and a French translation are
given (p. 233). The famous A%storia Caroli Magni, long attributed to Arch-
bishop Turpin, or Tylpin (0d. 753) is now discerned to be a composition of the
eleventh or twelfth century.
A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.” 169

elaborate fictions which afterwards clustered round the name of
Roland, did for the founder of the “ Holy Roman Empire” what
Asser, the Bishop of Sherborne, did for the first maker of England.
The well-known anecdotes of the Great Alfred’s proficiency in
reading and indifferent cooking rest upon this contemporary authority,
whose name, with that of Camden, is also associated with an ancient
controversy, which we cannot here discuss, as to the date of the
foundation of the University of Oxford.1

Nevertheless the French texts recently published by Wulff (4to. Lund. 1881)
-are perhaps the most fascinating and excited pieces of ancient prose in the
language. As the book is not on every library table, we here offer the reader a
‘specimen—from the final episode of tragedy and treachery, when Roland tries to
break his wondrous sword Durandal to prevent it falling into the hands of the
Saracens.

‘* Et feri en la pierre de marbre par trois foiz, pour ce que brisier la voloit.
Que vous diroie je plus? [This phrase ‘ Quid plura?’ is of frequent occurrence. ]
En tt. moitiez fendi la pierre, que ongues P espee mal en ot.

“*Dont commenca Rollant a sonner son cor. . . . (that Christians might come
at least in time to receive his horse and sword) lors corna son cors par tel vertu
que si grant alainne en issi, que le cor fendi par mi, et sz dist en et cuide que les
veinnes dou col Rollant li rompirent” ; and Charlemagne heard it from his camp
eight leagues off and would have returned. ‘‘ Mes Ganelon (the villain of the
piece) said, Sire, ne retournez mie, gue Rollanz [text i.] some tote jor son cor por
petit de chose. . . . sachiez qu'il na ore mestier de vétre aide, ainz chace a aucune
beste par cel bois, et pour ce va il ore cornant.” Ha, Dex [elsewhere ‘ Diex’ or
*Dieu’] cant son mauves et felon li conseil de Judas !”

The better known Chanson de Roland (8vo, 1870, with Fr. translation by A.
Lehugeur) is earlier in date, probably belonging to the time of William the
Conqueror.

1 In Amhurst’s curious Secret History of the said home of learning (3rd ed. 8vo,
1754), the author describes it as ‘‘a place so noted for faction and turbulency of
spirit that it became ‘a monkish proverb,

‘**Chronica si penses, cum pugnant Oxonienses,
Post paucos menses, volat ira per Angliginenses.’”

The scholastic disturbance which King Alfred, accompanied doubtless by the
necessary ‘‘ troop of horse,” is said, in a certain questionable passage of his bio-
‘graphy, to have gone to Oxford to suppress, may never have occurred at all; but,
assuming the existence of the University, the fact does not seem improbable,
170 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

But first among royal biographers should surely come the sweet
and pious Joinville (1224-1317) and his intimate and pathetic
memoir of Saint Louis—perhaps the most perfect work of its kind
in any language, certainly unique as the complete journal of a
crusade.

“On they came,” he writes of Damietta, “a good thirty of them
with their drawn swords in hand, and Danish axes. I asked my lord
Baldwin of Ibelin, who knew well the Saracen tongue, what they were
saying ; and he answered that they said they were coming to cut off
our heads.” All about him French Knights were busy confessing
their sins to one of the Brethren of the Trinity, of the household of
William of Flanders. But Joinville could not think of a sin to
confess—only that it was no use trying to defend himself or run
away. And when one of the terrible axes was raised above him he
could only kneel and cross himself thinking, “Thus died St. Agnes.”
But the Constable of Cyprus, who knelt, in that awful moment, at his
side, insisted on confessing to him. “I absolve you,” murmured
Joinville, ‘with such power as God has given me. Aut when I rose
up I could not remember a word of what he had said.” All which is
unheroic, but very human, illustrating indeed the childlike Greek
sensitive side of French nature; in a simple age when theologians
were gravely debating whether two angels could occupy the same space,
and mathematicians were morbidly anxious, as a learned wit assures

The most singular of all disturbances at Oxford is that described in the Chronicle
of Adam of Usk (ed. E. M. Thompson, 8vo, 1876, p. 109) and which lasted
for ‘‘¢wo years” (1388-9). This was a conflict between the Northerners, and
the Southerners and Welsh. The former held the streets as a camp, and shot
arrows at their antagonists crying ‘‘ War! war! sle, sle the Welsh doggys!”
Several Halls were ‘‘ broken and plundered,” and many lives lost. And certain
of the most distinguished colleges at Oxford have exhibited, in our own days, a
quite medizeval laxity of discipline... .. On the other hand, do we not still get
many of our Revolutions from that ‘‘ home of the inexact and the effete,” as Mr.
Stevenson calls it, or, let us rather say, from ‘‘ the Paris,” as a kindlier critic has it,
“* of Great Britain” ?
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.” 17!

us, lest the acute angles of a triangle should be injurious to religion.
Quite different is our feeling for that flower of chivalry Bertrand du
Guesclin when he tells us of the Battle of Poictiers, and of the wrath
of Marshal Andreghen, when accused of fear because he counselled
concession of the English demands. “Clermont,” he swore, “the
vest of my lance will be before the point of yours.” With Du
Guesclin’s little volume (he died in 1380) we are already passing into
the more conventional domain of the Chronicle, par excellence, as
distinguished both from the early annalist, and the later “ historian”
(the ideal Chronicle by the way, is printed in black letter by Vérard,
and the heading of every chapter begins with “Comment” in a
fashion fatiguing to the eye) of Froissart, that is, and Jean le Bel,
continued by Monstrelet.

Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Monstrelet, the biographer of
Du Guesclin, and the loyal servitor of Bayart, what a brilliant series
do they not present of naive and fascinating original materials for
history! Perhaps no names but those of Matthew Paris in England
and the three indispensable Villani! in Italy, are equally famous.
Italian history in the days of the Republics is, of course, a vast and
complicated tangle, which few writers even pretended to describe.
Among isolated memoirs of the most stormy and factious period

1 It is Giovanni who describes the ‘‘ odious and appalling spectacle” which pos-
sibly owed its origin to the earliest circulation of Dante’s /zferno, when upon a
sort of bridge of boats erected over the River Arno all the horrors of Hell were
enacted (May, 1304) by men dressed up as devils, and others stark-naked (?)
representing souls in torture, amid a hullabaloo of yells and screams. “The novelty
of the entertainment,” we are told, drew vast crowds on to the wooden bridge
which finally gave way, many of the spectators being killed, or drowned in the
river. Thus was verified what had been promised in the previous advertisement of
the entertainment that they should learn something of the other world. (Storza,
lib. viii. 70.) An incident more peculiarly characteristic of Italian medieval
history is the disastrous failure of the great Bardi bank in 1345. (Lib. xii. 54.)

The small Chronicle of Compagni was published in 1728, and an excellent
modern edition with index, forming part of the Scrzttord Italiani, 8vo, Pisa,
1818, with Nardi’s Life of Ant. Giacomini.
172 A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.”

there is none more deserving of mention than the short Florentine
History (from 1280 to 1312) of Dino Compagni, the contemporary
and political associate of Dante Aldighieri, which plunges the reader
at once into the very midst of the barbarous and bloodthirsty quarrels
of Guelfs and Ghibellins, Blacks and Whites, Cerchi and Donati, and
is none the less attractive for the all-pervading passion of the writer.
Small histories, of one State or another, are numerous in the follow-
ing centuries, and of very various interest, but many of these as well
as more special works such as Petrarch’s Letters, and es Memor-
abiles, Politian’s account of the Pazzi conspiracy (4to, 1769) belong
strictly to the literature here considered.

England, if not so rich as Italy in histories, nor as France in me-
moirs, possesses at least one unique national monument in the famous
Paston Letters, extending as they do in almost unbroken series from
1422 to 1509, and exhibiting to us the administrative darkness, local
irresponsibility, and rough-and-tumble social savagery of the late (and
stale) middle ages. But the Paston Letters are not exactly attractive
reading. Not sufficient taste or capacity for writing has been
developed at their date to make these records the enthralling work
they might have been. Such taste and capacity hardly appear till
half a century later, when the Renaissance has come, and its first
merely literary and ‘‘ book-making ” enthusiasm has worn off. An ex-
cessive attention to literary form and style has an injurious effect
upon literature the essential characteristic of which is vigorous
self-expression. How often, for example, is the miscellaneous reader
and book-hunter disappointed to find, on taking up what are entitled
(forsooth) the Famtar Letters of some celebrity born about the date
of the invention of printing, that the volume is stuffed with Cicero-
nian phraseology e¢ preterea nihil! Of the literary ‘“ miscellany”
often the most “humane” production of such an age, we have given
examples at an earlier date (see page 163). In such works a collec-
tion of maxims or platitudes are frequently illustrated by examples
drawn from any age but that of the learned writer. But one never
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 173.

can be quite sure. The materials of actual contemporary history
now and then lie hid amid scholastic exercises and dilettante tri-
vialities, and a single passing reference, or a brace of anecdotes, may
make such a volume (at even more than waste paper price) well
worth having.

Miscellanies such as those of Estienne Pasquier! and Claude
Fauchet are, of course, standard works of reference. The inferior
sort we only consult, as a rule, in order to take up the spoor of some
historical myth or obscure quotation. The scandal of the true
“memoir” is fresh killed, and has a “ gamey” flavour of its own;
and, as has been observed elsewhere, the natural home of this
literature is in France, where it obtained a diverse but unrivalled
growth in the second half of the sixteenth century, during the period
of the religious civil wars, and again throughout the splendid (but
less actual) ‘‘ Augustan age” of the “Grand Monarque.” The grave
historian De Thou—who is chiefly a judicious compiler and editor of
the original records of his time 2—the journalist L’Estoile, the Pro-
testant leader De Rohan, the unscrupulous and candid Brantéme, the
“iron-armed” Calvinistic captain La Noue,whose Political and Military
Discourses comprise more than their title suggests, Palma de Cayet,?

1 Pasquier’s Recherches dela France stand by themselves, so their frequent
citation would seem to show, as a comprehensive sort of introduction to a vast
number of subjects and authors. From the most important fact in history to a
fancy concerning the song of the nightingale there is nothing the reader can feel
certain of not finding therein. With regard to its bibliography, the existence of the
handsome 4to edition by Sonnius, 1615 (of which I possess a copy) has, if I recollect
right, been ‘‘revoqué en doute ” by learned bibliographers. (The true book-
collector should wish this to be the case with all his possessions.) Its special
interest consists in the fact that, amid so much merely literary and antiquarian
matter here lurks (suppressed in some editions) the most enthusiastic of Tracts for
the Times, Pasquier’s striking appeal to the Jesuits (iii. 36 sg. and see in particular
p. 408). Since the last edetion had occurred an event of no small significance in
relation to his case—the murder of Henry IV. As to Fauchet see p. 252.

2 -V. Ranke’s French History of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Appendix.

3 Whose Chronologies Novennaire, and Septenatre 1589-1604 contain many
174 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

Pierre Mathieu, and a score of other memoir-writers and quasi-
historians (of pamphleteers we have spoken elsewhere) throw a lurid
and troubled light upon the former period. But it is hardly necessary
to say that there is one memoir of memoirs, which either as a personal
revelation or as a record of events, should by rights come at the head
of such a chapter as the present, the Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois,

 

 

Device from title of P. Mathieu, Azst. des Device from title-page of P. Victor de Cayet
derniers troubles de la France. 8vo. Chronologie Septenaire. 8vo. Jean
Jouxte la copie imprimée & Lyon. 1604. Richer. Paris. 1607.

Queen of Navarre. Whole volumes might be written upon this

single book, upon its wit, its candour, its artfulness, the deep tragedy

pervading it, and the extraordinary relations of its dramatis persone
to one another in that wondrous age of which “ ¢était le propre ”—
the characteristic of certain highly interesting ages “d’adlier la Licence
avec Lactivite.”. M. Charles Caboche has written one such volume in

details not found elsewhere, and in particular (not to mention the story of the
Wandering Jew) a considerable account of the voyages and discoveries of the
time, French settlement in Canada, &c. The ‘‘ Mercure Francois” in 25 vols.
(1605-1644) is a continuation of this work. La Noue’s extremely sensible Dzscours |
Politiques, &c. are to be had in a good eudzcal 16mo ed. with index, 1614.
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.” 175

his copious but most useful introduction, biographical and literary, for
the work is also important in both respects. ‘‘ Tous les mots risqués
ou rencontrés par cette princesse,” he tells us in an extremely French
note which it is impossible not to cite, ““ne sont pas restés dans
Pusage. Philastie est demeuré grec malgré elle. . . . D’autres [ex-
pressions] ont disparu avec l’action qu’elles rappellent, on ne dit plus
‘aprés l’avoir dagué on le jeta par les fenétres’ (43); grace 4 Dieu on
ne le ferait pas davantage.” The picture of St. Bartholomew’s Eve,
following this citation, at least rouses pity for the bride of nineteen,
kept awake late by the thirty Huguenot friends surrounding her
husband’s bed, with whom she was imperfectly acquainted, “having
been but a few days married,” and roused from her first slumbers by
the terrifying grasp of a victim of the massacres, who flings himself
upon her, streaming with blood, and pursued by four cut-throats of
the League! As to the biography supplied by M. Caboche in his
edition (1861, the text alone first appeared corrected from the MS.
in 1842), it may be said to comprise (inevitably) all the most scandal-
ous passages from all the contemporary historians, one important
source being the atrocious pamphlet entitled Ze Divorce Satyrigque,
which finds a congenial place in that Recueil de pitces servant a
2 Histoire de Henry ILI. (p. 187, ed. 1683) referred to above.

The great Bethune, Duke of Sully, and Baron Rosny, who escaped
as a boy of thirteen from the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s, should by
rights have bequeathed to us the most valuable record of all. But he
did not, and thereby hangs a mysterious tale. The memoirs of
Sully, in French and English, are most commonly known in a
modernised version, revised and “ arranged” (not so unfairly as has
been alleged) by the Abbé L’Ecluse, at the suggestion of the Marquis
d’Argenson (as the latter tells us ‘in his own memoirs), and first
published in three volumes, quarto, 1745. Whatever may be said of
this text (and a whole volume of strictures upon its Jesuitical bias
appeared soon after, and was reprinted in 1762), the “original” is,
as near as may be for a book teeming with valuable information,
176 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

absolutely unreadable. The subject is a painful one, and what fad
or vanity induced the great economist to have the narrative of his
life and doings addressed to him by a quartett of secretaries, who are

LIBRI TRE.

AL GRAN DVCA DI FIORENZA
ET DI SIENA.

 

IN VENETIA.

Device from the title-page of the History of the War in the Low Countries, of
Ludovico Guilliardini (1523-1589), nephew of the historian ; Commentari delle
cose piu memorabili seguite in Europa, spectalmente in questi paest bassi (the
original edition dates from Antwerp) dalla pace di Cambrai 1529, inf. a tutto
anno 1560. In Venetia, appr. Nicolo Bevilacqua. 4to. 1565. For some re-
flections made in this work, the author (who also wrote a topographical description
of Belgium, Zotius Belgie descriptio, 12m0, 1652) was imprisoned by the Duke of
Alva.
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 177

endlessly employed, like characters of conventional drama, in telling
him what he already knows, who repeat themselves and confound
their subject-matter, and who were guided as to the amount they
wrote by the probable size of the volume to be filled !—passes com-
prehension. ‘You did this,” chatter these fatuous officials, “and
then you said that,” and “having, with your usual astuteness,
extricated yourself from the above-mentioned dilemma, you next
proceeded with characteristic tact to, &c., &c.” The mere fulsome
flattery of the production, however concocted, is enough to sicken
any reader. Nor is it reliable, sad to say, as to many details. Where
the change of a date, for example, could give.Sully the credit of an
additional diplomatic or political service to the great king his master,
the secretaries—or must we say the author ?—scrupled not to change
it. Yet the work is truly indispensable, and, as Walpole. observes
after perusing the first edition, will repay occasional prying excursions
into its chaotic contents. Only beware of the Zudex. Indices in
those old days were composed by trained lunatics who did nothing
else. Witness the following “prize entry” which we once found
under Q, after fruitless inquiry of all other letters, in the “‘ table” of
a famous and valuable history of the sixteenth century, ‘“ Que uno
de diversis locis acciderunt”’ '

It should be added in common fairness that the day referred to
was a very remarkable one, even for the sixteenth century.

It is hardly possible, we think, for a reader not to find this active
and agitated period of more interest than any other. Every century,
every great epoch, has indeed a peculiar interest and “colouring,” so
to speak, of its own, an interest and colouring expressed to a sur-
prising extent, since the invention of printing (and most notably in
the case of the Renaissance), by the very appearance and typography
of its productions, a fact borne in upon all who have systematically
examined many thousands of old books. .

But to come to a more practical point, if we recall the number of
striking, dreadful and significant episodes that star the surface of the

N
178 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

sixteenth century, the incidents of the Reformation, and the Council
of Trent, the sack of Rome, the sack of Antwerp and other tragedies
in the Netherlands, the Anabaptist rising in Germany, the execution
of Mary Queen of Scots, the defeat of the Armada, the massacre of
St. Bartholomew (and the other massacres and murders that mark the
course of the religious civil wars in France), the Turkish victories in
Europe, and the battle of Lepanto—if we consider such events, and
the prevalent literary enthusiasm of the time, it is easy to understand
how vast a number of what may be called local and efzsodze memoirs.
of this period (besides the larger works of professed historians) have
come down to us, in many cases already collected for our use by
contemporary editors, and in many others bound up together by
judicious collectors of later date.

It may be doubted if the celebrated Agrippa d’Aubigné did not
rival Sully both in vanity and capacity. This gentleman of France
died in 1630. As memoirs, which also supply a key to his Universal
fMistory, in which latter work he clearly considers that he had not

1 For an example of the first one might refer to Goulart’s celebrated A/émoires
de stat de France sous Charles IX. referred to above, which comprise not only
a mass of details concerning the period, with documents, decrees, edicts, and
harangues, &c., but also a selection of important tracts of the time,—or to such a
collection of contemporary narratives as that put together by Lonicer in his useful
‘Turkish Chronicles,” Chronicorum Turcicorum, tomi duo.” 8vo, 1578.

As to the second, as‘good an example as any I have to hand would bea RecaezT’
factice in small 8vo (a sale duplicate from the British Museum, 1787) containing
the following four pieces, the first three in the original Latin :—

(1) Ax Account of the Turkish Attack on Malta (1569, probably the most
remarkable siege known to history), w7th documents. Venice, 1566.

(2) An Account of the Turco-Polish War in Wallachia, &c., &c. (1574 A.D.)
Frankfort, 1578.

(3) du Account of the Sack of Dantzig (April 17, 1577), with a contemporary
satire. Ib. 1578.

(4) Last, but not least—An Account of the” African Expedition, and death
(Aug. 4, 1578) of King Sebastian of Portugal. Nuremberg, 1581, which is
(to indicate the popularity of the work) a Latin translation of the French translation,
of the original Portuguese account.
A MEDLEY OF ‘“ MEMOIRS.” 179

said quite enough about himself, are written in the very first person,
and with that irresistible frankness and adandon which, one must
admit, often characterises the most appalling mendacity. His single
volume, which no one would think of laying down unfinished, re-
minds one constantly of George Borrow, not to say of “Terence
D’Euville” in Mr. Bret Harte’s “‘condensed” Sensation Novel. “At
the age of four,” says the latter hero, “I was the best shot and the
boldest rider in the county.” “ At the age of six,” writes M. Theodore
Agrippa to his admiring descendants, ‘I could read Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew without points, besides French.”! “At seven-and-a-half
I translated Plato’s Crito, on my father promising that the work should
be printed wth my infantine effigy on the title-page.” Does any modern
collector possess this volume? We should be glad to see it.

At the age of fifteen D’Aubigné was of course in the saddle per-
forming prodigies of valour. To say that he was the wisest counsellor
of Henry IV. and yet the staunchest of Huguenots; that in wit, in-
telligence, and heroism he surpassed all persons with whom he came
in contact, is not to sum up his brief memoirs too favourably. His
own repartees, recorded by himself, are really first-rate; and his
‘assurance ” on many points convincing enough ; and how excellent,
for example, is his story of the gentleman who, joining the royal
cavalcade, and assuming Roquelaure, as /e mieux doré of the
party, to be the king, took his place by the side of Henri Quatre,

1 Mémoires écrits par lut-méme, otherwise called Hestoire secréte. The text
of the common eighteenth century edition (1731) is modernised, and (?) corrupt.
D’ Aubigné was the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon. Upon his memoirs,
and his satirical romance Le Baron de Faneste see some remarks on p. 426 of
Bayle’s Lettres Chotstes (3 vols. 8vo, Rotterdam, 1873) which letters, by the way,
are a sort of pocket edition of the Dictionary, and crammed with entertaining
details, literary and critical.

D’Aubigné, like a still greater satirist and memoir-writer, found a refuge from
persecution at Geneva, in which neighbourhood he purchased an estate and built a
castle to protect himself against the persecutions of the court of France, and the
“* ten assassins ” employed by his political opponents. See La Beaumelle, Mémozres
de Mme. de Maintenon, ed. 1789, i. 83.

N 2
180 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

and entertained that monarch with the latest scandals about the
“Reine Margot.”! To this class of work, freedom of style and a
strongly-marked individuality give the greatest value. Brantéme is
free alike from prejudice and good taste, but his works are too much
a mere congeries of details, too frequently of the sort which merely
amuse or disgust. D’Aubigné is a real character for whom we feel
a sincere regard; nay, in his capacity of soldier, diplomatist, historian,
satirist—for he contributes the important “ Confession Catholique du
Sieur de Sancy ” to that celebrated Recuei] de Pieces diverses servant
al Fist. de Henry I1I., &c., which had such a vogue in the seven-
teenth century—one of the leading men of his time.

The mention of Henry III. recalls a rarer work—the AZémoires tres
particuliers,2 in which Charles de Valois, Duc d’Augouléme, de-
scribes, with much pathetic detail, the death of that monarch at the

? Busbec’s little volume, so familiar to all book-hunters in the diminutive but ex-
cellent Elzevir edition of 1633 (Willems, 380)
is usually cited on Turkish affairs. Among thé
Letters from Paris (Ep. xxiii. p. 517) is described
the scandalous scene between Henry III. and the
Queen of Navarre.

The mention of this excellently printed work
recalls the number of valuable histories and
records published by the Elzevirs. Of all these
the most beautiful I have ever seen (and quite
one of the best productions of the century) is
Cardinal Bentivoglio’s Ast. della guerra di
Fiandra, 3 vols. 8vo, in Coloma, 1635-6 and
1640. Equally attractive is the (less valuable)
Memorie ovvero Diario, 1648, and the (highly
interesting) Le¢tere (from France and Flanders),
1646 (Crawford copy). All are in large clear
type, on fine paper. The device (Palm) here
; reproduced is said to have been purchased
by the Elzevirs from Erpenius.

2 t2mo, Paris (wood-cut title, view of the Seine) 1667. A curious fact, of which
I find a MS. note on my copy is that the (second) wife of Angouléme, himself a
natural son of Charles LX., only died in 1713 !

 
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 181

hand of Jacques Clement. Angouléme—a boy of sixteen—himself
saw the “demon of a monk,” and held the feet of the king as he lay
in his mortal agony.

With D’Aubigné, again, we may compare another lordly narrator
of his own exploits, belonging to a yet more famous family. The
Mémoires d’Henri de Lorraine, Ducde Guise, “\e Guise Napoletain”’
(fifth duke, and great-grandson of Le Balafré, assassinated in
1582, and who also left memoirs), were first published in 1668,
twenty-four years after the author’s death, and reprinted in 1681, with
supplement, 1687. Madame de Motteville tells us a good deal about
the author of these memoirs. Apart from their value as a detailed
account of the Neapolitan Revolution and the struggle with Spain by
the generalissimo who directed it, the dry humour and despotic
verve of the writer 1s peculiarly characteristic of one of those histories
written by people guz commandoient aux affaires, of which Montaigne.
thought so highly. “I replied, with a smile,” writes the Duke, after,
one of his adventures, “that I was not the sort of person to be afraid
of the canazlle [ed. 1681, p. 138], since, when God made a man of
my condition he put something (uz je ne scais guot) between his eyes
which the rabble could not face without trembling.” This something
and the promptitude with which he orders ill-disposed and impertin-
ent individuals to prison or execution, affect the reader strongly.

‘ Fort sensés,” is the comment of a French critic on these memoirs,
the action of which is brisk, with no waste of words. It should be
added that the Duke’s confessor also contributed an interesting
‘account of the state.of Naples” under his government, which does
not in all respects accord with the Guise version.?

To return a little in time and to cross the Channel, perhaps it may
safely be asserted that the most striking autobiography in the English

1 See the excellent criticisms of historians in the chapter on Books. Zssazs, ii. 10.

2 Relation del Estat de la Republique de Naples sous le Gouvernement de M. le
Duce de Gutse, traduit de l’Italien (de Francesco Capecelatro) par M. Marie Turge-
Loredan (a French lady who apologises for appearing as an. author). 12mo. 1680,
182 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

language is from the pen of the famous “Lord Herbert of Cherbury
(1581-1648), a contemporary to some extent of D’Aubigné, since he
died but eighteen years later, and quite equally remarkable as a dis-
tinguished and original personality, a wit, a philosopher, a soldier,
and an author.! Moreover, he spent a considerable time abroad, and
came much under French influence. Whatever the cause, Herbert’s
superiority to an affected generation is as remarkable as the diversity
of his interests.

Fencing, hunting, duelling, travels in France and Italy, music,
racing, politics, captures of outlaws in the mountains of Montgomery-
shire, all interspersed with acutely sensible and highly moral reflec-
tions, make up his excellent little book. The style is a trifle too
conscious, perhaps, even boastful, but thoroughly entertaining. How
sharp is his retort to Condé’s attack upon ‘“‘the King my master’s”
awful habit of “cursing.” —It all came of his majesty’s “ gentleness ”
of disposition. How so? Because chose whom he could have punished
himself he \eft to the Almighty to punish.

With his Zzfe and Raigne of Henry VII/. (as the author was
born nearly forty years after that monarch’s death) we are not
here concerned ; but only a few years before the date of the memoirs,
which conclude with a mention of the first publication of the aris-
tocratic author’s magnum opus on the foundations of belief (zx
french, Paris, 1639, 4to), was written by Sir Robert Naunton what
should by rights have been the best contemporary record of the court
of Queen Elizabeth. Naunton was born some twenty years before
Herbert, yet his Fragmenta Regalia® was not published till 1641,

1 For his great religious treatise see Hallam. The Memoirs were nearly lost to
posterity. A MS. could not be found in 1741, as Walpole tells us in the preface
to his first edition of them in 1764 (4to, 200 copies). They were excellently
reprinted (8vo, 1824) by J. Warwick, Brooke Street, Holborn. In my copy is a
fine portrait dated Saunders and Otley, 1826.

? No editions are worth having till Arber’s annotated reprint of 1870 (see that
editor’s preface), all the earlier issues 1641-42-53 (and the edition of 1814 is a
mere reprint of that of 1641) being more or less hopelessly corrupt.
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘MEMOIRS.” 183

Six years after the author’s death. The work—a “little draught ot
the great princess and her times,” is of great value, but its defects
{apart from the affectation of the style) are summed up in the fatal
editorial comment—“ Naunton lived too near the times he wrote of
to write all he knew.’ Modesty and other regrettable characteristics
made him prefer even the “censure of abruption” to the “‘ deface-
ment of persons departed, whose posterity yet remain.” The work
was therefore deliberately left in an obscure, imperfect, and unfinished
State—a mere collection of notes on Queen Elizabeth’s favourites—but
is, needless to say, a booklet which every one should read, especially
as it will not occupy the time usually given to an evening paper.

To English memoirs of the later seventeenth century the reader is
pleasantly introduced in the interesting footnotes of Macaulay, who,
whatever his defects, was more deeply saturated with the popular
literature of his period than any historian living or dead, who draws
‘‘human interest” or local colour from the obscurest literature of
libel, drama, and fiction, from Hamilton’s Zeneyde or the gossip of
Corporal Trim. From the mass of contemporary records of this
time one naturally puts aside as works unique of their kind (like
the Paston Letters aforesaid) the Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, of
which the latter, as the reader is usually reminded in the preface,
is for the single decade which it covers (1659-69), of the more
intense and exact contemporary interest ; while the former, a more
‘cultivated and leisurely work, covering a larger as well as later
period (up to a month before the author’s death at the age of eighty-
five, February 27th, 1706), “ partakes more of the nature of history.”
Dismissing these, which are in every reader’s hands, perhaps it may
be said that the English seventeenth century memoir suffers largely
from its peculiar nature. Military memoirs and the analysis of cam-
paigns are of course of a “special” interest, essential indeed to
history, but generally appealing to something much smaller than
“humanity.” To many “voracious” book-hunters there is something
almost terrifying in the very appearance, the ugly binding, the
184 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

common paper, the meaningless capitals, the crooked yet rarely
picturesque typography of an English volume of the seventeenth
century ; the secret being that such literature is almost all in an
‘‘atmosphere”’ of political, or still worse of theological, controversy.

In England, as in France, it may perhaps be said generally that
the transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century marks a
decline in interest. In France the civilisation following upon the
final settlement of the most absolute of absolute monarchies rather
represents a period of splendid but insecure repose. It was the
triumph of Mme. de Sévigné to show how high, how near to the level
of modern days such a civilisation could be carried in a society
where political and intellectual liberty were practically unknown,
In England there was more serious work to be done, and those
who did it, or resisted its doing, are often, from the point of
view of general and humane interest, too busy to be entertaining.
Puritanism, Political Theory, and Civil War, these make an atmosphere
which seems, for the time, to stifle in most writers all freshness,
freedom, and vivacity. Of the terrifying problems of theology we
need not here speak, but the tolerably plentiful and somewhat con-
fusing records of the Civil War in England, seem in their modern
“actuality” and seriousness! to have lost the touch of old world
romance that hangs about the struggles of the previous century.
The seventeenth century was, moreover, according to one of
our historians, the age when the “ misrepresentations of Faction”
chiefly began.2- Welwood’s useful little Memoirs of Material
Transactions in England for the Hundred Years preceding the

1 A seriousness curiously contrasted with the tragi-comic triviality of the
“«Fronde,” which hardly acquires a “‘ dignity of history” in the commentaries of
the cold and sententious Rochefoucauld. To the French memoirs of this age
should be added the collection of epigrams and satires included in the Zadleau
de la vie de Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, and Fouguet, 12mo, v. ed. 1694, chez.
LP. Marteau.

° David Hume, History of his own Life, sm. 8vo. Lond. 1777, p. 27 (with.
the Apology for his Life and Writings, by Adam Smith. did.)
A MEDLEY OF ‘ MEMOIRS.” 185,

Revolution of 1688,! (in part a memoir as well as a compendium)
was written, he tells us, on account of the difficulty experienced
by Queen Mary in “knowing truly the events of her grandfather’s
reign,” and confided to her on the understanding that it should
be shown to no one else without the author’s consent. Queen
Mary could not trust to a letter of General Ludlow (whose memoirs.
have just been re-edited by Mr. C. H. Firth) in which the char-
acter of Charles I. seemed to have been “strangely blackened,” and
thought that most histories of the time were either “ Panegyricks.
or Libels.” Probably she would not have been satisfied even
with the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell,—although these,
surely, if anything, bring back to us “that Puritanism” which,
as Mr. Carlyle remarks, “is not of the nineteenth century but lieth
buried in long rows of dumpy quartos (the very titles of which are
wearying to the flesh) in huge indexless folios,” and last but not
least in the “fifty thousand unread pamphlets of the Civil War,
which lie mouldering in the British Museum alone.” Not that all
the literature is so bulky (although the mere relation of sieges and
battles, and of political chicanery is in any form apt to pall), for
who has not read with delight the Short Memorials of Thomas Lord
Fairfax” * that Fairfax to whom Buckingham’s epitaph assigned
(besides his other virtues) that
“other thing quite out of date,
called Modesty.”

In these 128 octavo pages have we not the whole history of a
Civil War, and what is still more interesting to all but the “ Dryas-
dust,” of the feelings it roused in a conscientious man supported
only by a religious fervour to which our age is a stranger, through
all the weariness and the “ vexation of spirit ’”—kings cherishing

1 See author’s preface (7th ed. 8vo. 1749).

2 Sm. 8vo, R. Chiswell, 1699, ed. Brian Fairrax. At the end is Chiswell’s
advertisement of the fourth and last part of Rushworth’s Collections, and his
catalogue (9 pp.) almost exclusively theological.
186 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

miserable delusions, soldiers who would be statesmen, ‘“ arch-agita-
tors,” ‘‘ Hydra-head petitions,” ‘private Juntos,” and “levelling
Factions,” crowned by the loss, let us remember, of a beloved
brother in one of the fierce charges on “ Marston fields.”

Students of Macaulay (and there is surely no writer whose refer-
ences so well repay verification),! will know that there is one
memoir writer—perhaps more often cited than any other—who
is of continuous interest from the Restoration to the Revolution—
but whose complete text was not published till some years after
the historian’s death Among the numerous minor records of
the latter half of this troubled century, the age of Evelyn and
Pepys—the AZemoirs of Sir John Reresby® supply, perhaps, a more
useful and readable narrative than any, and, in particular, a quite
pathetic picture, of the deep anxieties undergone by the average

gentleman, of no particular principles or enthusiasm, lest he should
be
‘* Off with the old love”

(constitutionally, of course, and revolutionally speaking)
“* Before he was on with the new.”

1 Among the less obvious sources cited one may note—Halstead Robert, Szeccinct
Genealogies, 1685, in folio, ‘‘a work probably known to few even of the most
‘curious and diligent readers of history,” and that for obvious reasons, the title
being to some extent delusive, and the name ‘‘ Robert Halstead”? fictitious, the
real author being the Earl of Peterborough. Macaulay, i. 269 (ed. 1858);
Inghilterra descritta dal P. D. Bartoli, 1684; Wiliam Fuller (spy, double
traitor, &c.) Life of himself, which one can believe to be very curious.

A perfect feast of criticism upon the great ‘‘ Qze/lex” of the period, as well as a

large assortment of invaluable original texts and extracts in half the languages in
Europe will be found in the appendix to Ranke’s great history, in which the
personal and local ‘‘ equations” of authors such as Burnet and Clarendon, the
corruptions of individual character, the corruptions of texts, the deranging effects
of exile and of office, of London and the Hague, are scientifically weighed and
adjusted.
21734. 8vo. An abridged and imperfect edition (? from a MS. since lost).
Complete text with notes by J. Cartwright. Longmans, 1875. If any other single
work (apart from Evelyn and Pepys). supplies material of equal interest, it is the
Diary of Narcissus Luttrell.
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.” 187

Reresby, at least, strikes one less as being in a particular clique or
“‘faction” than other writers—most notably the pious authoress of
The Life of Colonel Hutchinson, which famous work, however inter-
esting the military exploits therein narrated, is most valuable as the
picture of a particular religious atmosphere, of that ‘ manner of life
and conversation” which gave perhaps an unnecessary amount of
pain to the late Mr. Matthew Arnold and rendered him seriously
anxious about the social salvation of Mr. Goldwin Smith in the
‘‘long winter evenings of (colonial) Toronto.” 1

The oppression, social and religious, in the air of the seventeenth
century is perhaps nowhere better expressed than in some chapters
‘of that immensely popular little work of Bishop Earle (who died
in 1665) Zhe World Display'a?

Who could forget his She precise hypocrite (!), “a Nonconformist
in a close stomacher and a ruff of Geneva print,” who “doubts of the
Virgin Mary’s salvation, and dares not saint her, but knows her own
place in Heaven as well as the pew she has a key to,” and is “so
taken up with faith that she has no room for charity” ?

Or to turn to that most important source of history of the
period, Roger North’s Life of the Lord Keeper Guildford (3rd
ed. 2 vols. 8vo. 1819), which, like the author’s other works,
and his celebrated “Examen” of Kennet’s History were put
forward as an antidote to certain “solemn writers of English
affairs.” The young Francis North, son of Dudley Lord North
was first put to school, we are told, at Isleworth under the “indiffer-
-ent tutorage”’ of a Mr. Willis. The man was a rigid Presbyterian
and his wife a furious Independent. ‘‘These two sects at that time

1 See a characteristic passage, of perhaps rather forced irony, in the A/¢xed
Essays. Ed. 1880, p. 83. To Mr. Goldwin Smith’s exaltation of the Puritan
(‘‘Middle-class”) ideal, the critic replies with Chillingworth’s summary of the
matter, ‘‘ Scribes and Pharisees on one side, publicans and sinners on the other.”

2 Which had six editions (in its anonymous form) between 1629 and 1633, and
perhaps an eighth in 1664 (preface to edition of 1740). See also A Church
Lapist, p. 28. Both these objectionable characters appeared in the first edition.
188 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

contended for pre-eminence in tyranny, so that they hated one an-
other more -than either the Bishops, or even Papists themselves”
—a result regarded by the biographer (who died in the year 1733)
as “the ordinary curse of God upon men permitted to prosper in

 

       

=i4

CD

 

 

 

This Helmet was a Crown by Revelation:
This Halbert was a Scepter for the Nation.
So the Fifth-Monarchy anew is grac’d,
King Venner next to [ohn a Leyden plac'd.
Pagitt’s Heresiography, ed. 1662, p."280.

wickedness.” Mrs. Willis instructed her babes in praying by the
Spirit, especially for their “distressed brethren in Ireland.” These
“fanatic schools” produced in the pupils, as we can imagine,
A MEDLEY OF ‘* MEMOIRS.” 189

“violent reactions.” But when the future Lord Keeper emerged
from this discipline it was only to be subjected to a “Cavalier
Master ” (!) at the Grammar School of Bury.

When we consider how disturbed all social existence seems to
have been, not only by the actual dangers of war, but by such
pedantic factions, religious! and political, it is impossible not to feel
some sympathy for that eccentric Marquis of Winchester described
by Reresby, who usually dined all night and slept all day, yet was
not really mad, but on the contrary “had good sense,” in fact
“most thought he counterfeited this shat he might be free and
unconcerned from the affairs of that age.”

The most striking, and historically significant antithesis to the
pious Hutchinson memoirs would be those concerning the Comte de
Gramont bequeathed to us by his illustrious brother-in-law, Anthony
Hamilton, Hamilton the one French Briton, the one Irish Scot (for
he inevitably recalls the liveliest Hibernian romance) who is by
common consent, not only a master of classic French, but the
absolute embodiment of esprit Frangais. The merits of this
wondrous study in what may be called the later chivalry (for it is no
more that of Henri Quatre than that of Bayard), this trivial, yet
finished tableau of a society which recognised only one evil—bore-
dom,? of this elaborate and complicated farce which concludes rather
tamely by the usual ze plus ultra of romance, the marriage of all the

1 In Ephraim Pagitt’s Heresiography—‘‘a description of the Hereticks, &c.,
sprang wp in these latter times . . . . together with brasse Plates of the most
eminent sectaries” about sixty species, from the Plung’d Anabaptist to the
Grindletonian, are enumerated. This little volume (which I possess in the 1662

edition, containing the account of the Fifth Monarchy rising, and portrait of
Venner) is in considerable demand among the numerous descendants of the pas-
sengers in the Mayflower.

2 John Evelyn is surely to be thanked for preserving a portrait of the one virtuous
and yet sociable individual who adorned the said court, wondering only “that any
cone could like her,” and enjoining her younger friends to avoid the society of mer
It is curious that the Life of Godolphin, 8vo, 1848, quite one of the finest produc-
tions of Pickering, should be seen so often ‘ lying about the streets.”
190 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

principal characters, have perhaps been overrated. In truth “le fond
en est mince,” but as Sainte Beuve proceeds to remark, though there
may have been two or three such gallants as De Gramont, there is but
one Hamilton, and this is the only work of his which is worth read-
ing, and re-reading, as another French critic insists, once a year.

It is moreover—let us jealously assert—in so far as it is not a
novel, an English memoir, since when we read it, we think less of
such events as the siege of ‘‘ Trin,” or Lerida, of which we can read
elsewhere, as of Buckingham dandling the Princess of Babylon’s
“baby,” its squalls drowned by the hysterical laughter of the beauti-
ful Frances Stewart and the whole uproarious court of St. James's.

French life is undeniably duller, if grander, under the settled des-
potism of Louis XIV. than in the more romantic age preceding it; for
who could write about the ‘“‘Grand Monarque ” as Bassompierre does
of Henry of Navarre? In the memoirs of Mme. de Motteville
(ed. 1783, vol. i., p. 386) is a mention of him (sub anno 1646) which
seems to note the passing away of the old régzme.

The poor man had just died, quite suddenly. Having apparently
recovered from an attack of fever, he was returning to court, and at
the first hostel where he put up his servants found him the next
morning dead in his bed. ‘He who had been so beloved by Henry
TV.”—as one knows from Bassompierre’s touching picture of the
familiar incidents preceding the dreadful tragedy of the assassination !
—‘‘and so favoured by Mary de Medici, so admired and famous in
the days of his youth, was scarce regretted in ours.” THe was still
handsome, courtly, obliging, and liberal, ‘‘du¢ the young fellows could
not bear him. They said that he was not the fashion now, he was
too fond of his stories, of talking of himself and his time. I have
known some so ungrateful as to ridicule him for his readiness to offer
them hospitality when indeed he had scarcely wherewithal to dine
himself.” Besides, the marshal had an old-fashioned courtesy

1 Mémoires de Bassompierre. Ed. 1665, I. p. 222. In this attractive little
edition the ‘‘ Journal de ma vie” forms three volumes, four in the reprint of 1723
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” I9I

towards women, and manners of a past school which he could not
be persuaded to abandon, and which seemed out of place in an age
when ‘unbridled ambition and avarice "—the change in moral and
social tone is ascribed largely to Mazarine influence—“ passed for the
greatest virtues among the highest nobility.” The new generation,
ripening for the “‘ grand ” gilt and stucco reign, was doubtless harder
and more artificial, and in a way, less communicative than that from
which Henri Quatre chose the familiar companions, upon whose
shoulders he hung while rallying them upon their superstitious.
timidity.

Not that the materials of history, the history of an age in which
literature became “a chorus in praise of royalty’°—were ever more
plentiful. De Motteville herself, the patient lady in waiting—first of
the numerous series of domestic chroniclers of French monarchy and
empire, continued to our own time in the persons of the Duchess
d’Abrantes, wife of General Junot and intimate of the great Napoleon,
and de Gontaut, whose memoirs have just appeared in English
(1894)—de Motteville, with her mild wonder at the caprices of her
distinguished employers, what would she have thought of the scenes
reserved for Mme. de Campan! ‘Then again we have the dignified
and classical Rochefoucauld,! the light-hearted and theatrical De
Retz, now saving the state, now escaping from prison or assas-
sination, the Marquis de La Fare with his sensational account
of La Brinvilliers and the “Poison chamber” (8vo, 1734), the
conspirator Montrésor (well known in his two Elzevirian ‘“twelves,”).
and the confidential Pierre de la Porte (1603-1680) valet
de chambre, and—one could have wished—tutor and governor
of the spoilt little “Grand Monarque”—for what a picture is

™ Who is to be read in Renouard’s beautiful edition, with the portraits of
Mazarin, Condé, and the rest. Sm. 8vo, ‘‘ papier fin,” 1804 (cmprimerie de
Crapelet). The Mémotres de M. D. L. R. (not to be confused with the spzrzou
memoirs of the Comte de Rochefort) dated Cologne (i.e. Foppens, Brussels,,

1662—in which form the work first appeared—are of no value, and full of mis
prints owing, as we are told, to ‘‘ the impatience of the public.”
192 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

his of the poor lonely child craving for affection, and as yet so
amenable to reason, growing up in that malarious atmosphere of
flattery, corruption, and espionage in which “good books were
regarded with as much suspicion as honest people ” !+

Such was the court atmosphere of that long reign. When the pro-
fligate Abbé de Choisy (Fénelon’s contemporary) was writing one of
his moral and improving manuals of history about Charles IX., the
little Duke of Burgundy confronted him with a puzzling inquiry
“Flow will you manage to say that the king was mad?” ‘There was,
however, at least one individual living through all this period, and at
court, who literally did not mind making any observation suggested
by its singular phenomena, and this was Charlotte Elizabeth of
Bavaria, Duchess of Orléans, and mother of “the Regent,” who, dying
in 1722 at the age of seventy, saw enough both of the Most Christian
King and of her own son to appreciate the general drift of French life
and politics. She was, as we are told by St. Simon—the gossipping
St. Simon whose inaccuracies she once or twice corrects—a coarse,
rough, unsociable, and unpolished, but good-hearted creature, and
what remains of the immense budgets of news she was always writing
to her distinguished relatives in Germany, is not in all cases suited to
the drawing-room table. The reader who is anxious to know the
worst, should consult M. Brunet’s admirable (French) edition (Paris,
1855) the German collections of the eighteenth century being all im-
perfect. It is she, by the way, who tells us, at second-hand, not con-
tent with blackening the character of her own generation, that Saint
Francis de Sales used to cheat at cards! Possibly he never did,
although Victor Hugo in a coruscating paragraph of Les Misérables
avers that it was the great secret of his popularity.

The papers of the excellent Marquis d’Argenson, who discovered
to the French court of 1744 the “‘entirely original and undeveloped
business ” of honesty, consist of most valuable political and literary
notes on the events of his time (1694-1757), a work to be studied of

1 MMém. de La Porte. 12mo. Genéve, 1756, p. 253.
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 193

course in connection with Duclos, the vast St. Simon, who really
wastes'a good deal of the reader’s time, the correspondence of
Grimm, Diderot & Cie., and the ubiquitous Voltaire. Besides
the remark cited above, concerning Sully, he tells us (ed. 1825,
p. 233) that the Choisy Memoirs as printed at Utrecht, 1747, are really
only excerpts (“la fleur de mon manuscrit”) from a larger collection
of his own, taken down from his kinsman the Abbé’s dictation by
d’Argenson himself, and stolen by Olivet, the historian of the French
Academy.

The authorship of the memoir, it may here be observed,
especially of that which has no preface, is too often a matter of
mystery and fraud. The atmosphere of absolute monarchy was
frequently found insalubrious to authors of an inquiring spirit. They
wielded the pen in unwholesome dread of one of those upper cham-
bers in the Bastille where, nevertheless, Bassompierre found a quiet
place for writing, though Bussy-Rabutin could only read or think of
“horrors.” Hence at the close of the seventeenth century the Dutch
press became, as Macaulay says, “the most formidable engine by
which the public mind of Europe was moved”; and many a more
veracious record than those of M. d’Artagnan (utilized, so Alexandre
Dumas assures us, in the production of his never-dying Alusketeers),}

1 Possibly more than one reader of the preface of Les Tro’s Mousquetaives—
“*dans laquelle il est établi que les héros de histoire... . n’ont rien de
mythologique” may have concluded that the work there .referred to, Les
Mémoires de M. & Artagnan—Amsterdam. Chez Pierre Rouge (no date given)
was apocryphal. The full description, which M. Dumas perhaps quoted from
memory, we here give from the catalogue (1894) of a Parisian bookseller. JZé-
motres de M. d Artagnan, Capitaine-lieutenant de la tre Compagnie des Mousque-
taires du Roy, contenant quantité de choses particuliéres et secrettes gut se sont
passtées sous le rigne de Louts le Grand. 1700. 3 vols in 12, (Anglice, 8vo. ?):
Veau pl. Rare. 25 fr. An order despatched by return of post failed to secure
this treasure. Charles de Bats, Comte d’Artagnan (0d. 1673) ‘‘a creature of the
ate Cardinal” was the officer who arrested Fouquet. Mém. de Motteville.
Ed. 1783, vi. 82. AMém. de Choisy, p. 177. Prosper Marchand in a note to Bayle’s
Lettres Choisies (p. 653) classes the Memoirs with those of Rochefort as one of
oO
194 A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.”

found a publisher, and a more or less “Elzevirian” printer
in Amsterdam or the flourishing suburbs of “ Villafranca” and
“ Alethopolis.” 2 Later in fact, the thing became a nuisance, one
Courtilz de Sandras (1644-1712) having established somewhere: in
the Low Countries, a sort of memoir-factory, and inundated Europe
(when not imprisoned in the fortress above mentioned) with the pro-
ductions of his all too facile pen. So we read in the Siecle de Louis XV
To such reproaches an obvious reply would be that Coligny, Turenne
the C (omte) de R (ochefort), and the other victims of these outrages
in duodecimo really lived and had adventures of their own. If they
did not choose to record them, was that the fault of M. de Sandras
(who was very likely the first personal interviewer), or a reason why
he did, not slake the public thirst for information ?-

Anonymous or pseudonymous libels of the eighteenth century are
more easily classed, the onus being, so to speak, upon all such to
prove to the reader that they were not written by Voltaire, who
appears in as many countries and under as many names as the great
twin brethren, though content, while printing his Lettres sur des
Angilois (about which the Basle and London booksellers quarrel so)
at a ‘‘small town in Normandy,” to venture on occasional visits to
Rouen in the disguise of the “Comte de Revol,” or of a Milor
Anglais.

those historical. romances the nature and quantity of which were becoming a serious
danger to history.

1 Bayle’s great work on tolerance (Commentaire Philos. sur ces Paroles de Jésus
Christ contrains-les d entrer, &c., which, according to the best authority, represents
more .than any other ‘‘the foundation of modern Rationalism,” and about
which he was naturally rather nervous, hails from ‘‘Cantorberry: traduit de
VAnglois de Sieur Jean Fox de Bruges par M. J. F.,” and he even alludes to it
in. letter to Enfant (Mar. 3, 1688) as a curious result of the ‘‘démangeaison
Pimprimer” affecting the London press. See the Lettres Choisies, pp. 238
and 513. The second edition (Rotterdam. 2 vols. 8vo. 1713),- bearing the
author’s name, is far preferable to the first (which is very incorrect) and contains

also the important introductory tract—‘' Ce gue c’est gue la France toute Catholique
sous le rigne de Louts le Grand.”
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 195

And of Ats Memoirs (though equally concerning Frederick the
Great and the principal powers of Europe) érits par lui-méme, in
that fascinating thin 8vo. volume of 1784, on papier bleu, with
their cosmopolitan jokes, their three “swzfes” dated from the
‘“ Délices,” and their parting shot at the ecclesiastical order—may we
not say that their perusal is a liberal education in—the last century?
‘With these should be taken Duvernet’s charming Vie privée et politique

 

Portrait of Voltaire—D’aprés nature par Joseph Vernet & la séance de l "Académie Francaise.
ou Voltaire est venu sitger pour la derniére fois en 1778. Frontispiece to Lettres inédites,
1818. To the Life by ‘‘T. J. D. V.” is prefixed a facsimile of Voltaire’s extremely clear

and regular handwriting.

de M. de Voltaire, suivie d’anecdotes (8v0. 1797), and the Ledtres
inédites (1818)? containing that excellent crayon portrait of the old

1 Tt is excusable perhaps to prize these two library editions (uniform in respect-
able half morocco) more than any historical work in one’s possession, even of the
completest modern type. <A special attraction of the letters here printed is that
several] contain in brackets passages excised ‘‘ by order” from the Kehl edition.

Of Voltaire’s goodness of heart one ‘‘ anecdote” may be recalled, that of the
proud but impecunious young officer staying with the wealthy proprietor of Ferney,

O02
196 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

man they compel us to love, as he last appeared at the Academy
séance of 1778.

The thought of the eighteenth century and the reflection that some
one is (we believe) about to publish a new life of the Chevalier
d’Eon, revives our regret that Caron de Beaumarchais, the greatest
“character” of the pre-Revolutionary period, did not leave us
Memoirs of his “ Life and Times,” | as distinguished from the Memoir
or two (a different matter) which he has left, and in which, as one
critic observes, “all his enemies appear exactly as ridiculous and odious
as he pleased, being led upon the novel platform of a quasi-legal
manifesto like so many strange animals merely existing for the reader’s
diversion.” One contemporary even observed, with a malign admira-
tion, ‘If Beaumarchais demanded half my fortune, threatening as
alternative to write a memoir about me (in the style, that is, of
L’affaire Gezmann) 1 should give it up to him sur le champ.”

But let us keep to the subject in hand. Voltaire, not to dwell

and practically unable to return to his regiment. ‘‘ Permettez,” said M. de V.
‘“qu’un de mes chevaux pour se former, fasse la route avec vous,” and, slipping a
purse into his hand, ‘‘je vous prie de vouloir bien vous charger de sa nourriture”
(Vie, p. 393).

As to the omissions the following is an extract from a letter addressed to Mme.
la Comtesse de Lutzelbourg,”’ and dated ‘‘ Aux Délices, prés de Genéve, 23 Juillet,
1759”: ‘‘Je plains fort ceux qui ont les maisons de campagne 4 Louisbourg. Ils
s’en sont défait, comme vous savez, en faveur des Anglais qui sont maitres de I’fle
[de la ville, de la garnison, de nos vaisseaux] &c. Il ne nous restera bientédt plus
rien dans l’Amérique septentrionale. Mais afin de ne point faire de jaloux, ils
vont caresser toutes nos cétes de France, les unes aprés les autres. Vous savez que
la désolation de Paris est grande non parceque Louisbourg est pris: non parceque
nous sommes battus partout et que nous allons l’étre encore; mais parcequ’on
manque d’argent et qu’on craint de nouveaux impéts. Ona du moins le plaisir dese
plaindre et de crier contre tous ceux qui conduisent notre mauvaise barque ”—but
even this pleasure could not always be enjoyed in public.

1 The defect is to some extent supplied by Cousin d’Avallon’s entertaining Vz
privée, politique littéraire de Beaumarchais, suivie @ anecdotes, bon mots, &c. (with
a fine portrait by Cochin) sm. 8vo. “‘ papier bleu.” 1802. Not a very common
book, and only recently added to the Library of the British Museum.
A MEDLEY OF ‘‘MEMOIRS.” 197

upon an inexhaustible subject, sums up in a unique degree the
greatest interests of his time, but, for reasons beside what he himself
tells us of the precarious arrival of MSS., &c., we do not pin our
faith to such works as his History of Russia. Rulhitre’s Anecdotes of
the Revolution of 1762, appended to his Histoire del’ Anarchie de
FPologne (4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1807) are better worth reading, for
Rulhigre was on the spot, at the French Legation.

To realise the true inwardness of any great epoch or incident the
student should run his eye over a chronological chart, and inquire
first who was living at the time who cow/d have known, and of these
who did know the facts, or even bore the same relation to them as
fineas did to the Trojan War.

Among these a high place must be given to those writers (includ-
ing many a retired statesman and politician) who knew “every one
worth knowing,” and viewed things in general from a familiar and
independent point of view, of whom the most famous in English
history is beyond doubt Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford
{1717—1797), who, to the superficial eye often appears a mere “ person
of quality” dallying elegantly, as indeed he did dally, with “ Letters,”
remaining none the less a man of wide culture and acute observa-
tion, perhaps “fit to live,” according to the Chesterfield standard.
At the bottom of a particularly entertaining page of eighteenth
century history it is five to one that we find the familiar reference
“* Walpole to Mann.” Posterity has reason to be thankful that Sir
Horace Mann (whose answers were too dull for publication) was so
frequently away from England as to appreciate the smallest details of
social and political news. And what with the Alemoirs of George
IT. (first. published’ 1822) and of George’ III., edited by Sir D.
Marchant in 1845, the nine volumes of correspondence (“ Walpole’s
incomparable Letters” as Byron calls them) with Mann, Lord Hertford,
and others published by Mr. Cunningham in 1857 (and covering a
period from 1735 to 1797!), the Reminiscences, the journals, the
Hasty Productions, the Occasional Thoughts and the polemical tracts,
198 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

it may be doubted if Mme. de Sévigné and Saint Simon together
could have left a livelier picture of halfa century of national life, though
we may regret that it is diffused over so many spacious volumes.

But one cannot quite agree with the great essayist (who asks.
in the chapter cited above—“ What can we expect of a doctor
writing on war?”’) that specialists of any kind are the best memoir-
writers. His admired Froissart had little special knowledge, but an
omnivorous curiosity, and there is many a volume of “lay” journal
or biography the author of which at least admirably hitches on the
Events of History to his own private affairs, interests, and amusements,
which, like the Lucretian hooked particles, serve to attach them to
our own minds. , ,

Can we not “see from here” that immortal ¢rvovatore Cellini com-
ing home from shooting on that day in Epiphany, 1537, with the gun
(“same which I shot Captain Bourbon,” perhaps) that never missed,
across his saddle, and the excellent hound Barruccio at his heels,
chatting cheerfully to young Fedice Guadagni-poco? Messer Benvenuto:
is a little worried, it is true, about the medallion he is busily executing
for Alexander Medici, Duke of Florence by the grace of Charles V.
Lorenzino (and here the reader shall. open his Comedies et
Proverbes of De Musset, 1st ed. p. 53.) had repeatedly undertaken to:
send him the design for the other face of the work, and not sent it,
and Cellini is impatiently expecting each day the long promised
‘reverse of the medal.”

Meanwhile, the hard-worked artificer must have air and exercise .
having enjoyed which this evening, he intends to shoot no more.
But up get those two irresistible geese out of the ditch, bang goes.
the unerring weapon, and both fowls are bagged, of course, with a.
little trouble and the help of Barruccio. But this takes time ; more~
over, the sportsman gets into a dyke and sticks in the mud, and one.
of his high riding boots is filled with water, and he has to sit down,
as incautious waders do, and wave his foot “in the air” to let the
water run out. Then riding home he catches rheumatics, must needs
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 199

stop and get Felice to light a fire to dry him. In fine, it is evening
as they ride into Rome; and what is that strange fire in the sky over
Florence? (This one presumes to have been a vision.) Ah! He
will know the next day when couriers come in, post haste, to tell that
the cry in Florence is “Down with dukes!” that young Lorenzaccio
has “executed” the tyrant Alexander Azmsedf, who will therefore not
need to be immortalised by the cunning hand of Cellini, and that
this is the promised “reverse of the medal!”

It would be idle to inquire how many of these intensely interesting
details are positively authentic, whether Benvenuto really saw sala-
manders in the fire, or actually wounded the Prince of Orange—unless,
perhaps, we could have approached the author in one of those rare
moments of penitence and depression when, after reading “the Bible
and the Chronicles of Villani,” nothing less than an angelic mes-
senger dissuaded him (ii. 18) from committing suicide!! How
many such ¢adleaux vivants—so easy to observe, so difficult to
forget—have not these interesting and .confidential persons pre-
sented to us in their passionate desire not to go to the grave
forgotten and unknown! How varied in colouring and interest
are the life-scapes preserved in their gallery—from the nameless
iniquities of a Borgian: Palace so respectfully recorded for us in
the diary of the ‘Grand Chamberlain of Alexander VI.,? to the
latest Frenchified gossip of a court lady of our own respectable

1 It is a singular fact that this most famous of autobiographies was never pub-
lished till a century and a half after the author’s death. Begun in 1559, as he tells
us (iv. 10) and carried as far as 1566, it first appeared in an (incorrect) undated
quarto, bearing the well-known imprint ‘Colonia. Pietro Martello.” Of this a
counterfeit was produced at Florence 1792.

2 The complete Latin text of John Burchara’s Diary of the Times of Innocent II.,
Alexander VI., Pius Ill. and Julius I1., of which Leibnitz gave the public a taste
in his Specimen Historia Arcane, sive Anecdota de Vitd Alexandri VI, Pape (a title
doubtless suggested by Procopius). 4to. Hanoverz, 1696, has now been published.
Florence, 1854. Ed. A. Gennarelli. For other contemporary accounts of the
final tragedy in the Vatican garden (Aug. 17, 1503) see Gudtccardini, and Paolo
200 A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.”

century ; from the letters of the suffering but hopeful Galileo’ to the
memoirs of a persecuted modern Radical ;2 from the casual notes of
the vivacious and cosmopolitan Howell to the domestic and political
register cyphered up every evening by the unfortunate Mr. Samuel
Pepys, of whose private character we have now, it may be hoped,
deciphered the worst. Historians of their own, and more or less of
other people’s “own times,” like the Emperor Tiberius Claudius,
whose work (in eight volumes, as Suetonius tells us) has unfortunately
perished, or Frederick the Great,3 or Leonardo Aretino,* or Mr. Justin
McCarthy, biographers and autobiographers, writers of memoirs
proper and familiar letters, social, political, personal, and topical,®

Giovio. The latter mentions the wine treated with the Borgian white powder
which was handed to Alexander VI. by the mistake of an under-butler. Guic-
ciardini, with an awful impartiality, gives a similar account as that which ‘‘ was
generally believed,” the practice of poisoning superfluous cardinals and rich people
being so notorious.

1 vy, Fabroni, Lettere inedite di uomini tllustrt. 2 vols. 8vo. Firenze, 1773-5.

2 Bamford’s Passages in the Life of a Radical first printed dy and at Heywood.
n. d. (1841-2). i

3 Histoire de mon temps, and (to some extent) the better known Mémoires de
Brandebourg (avec suite ‘‘ de main de maitre,” 1750). Voltaire by the way tells
us (Mémoires, ed. 1784, p. 24) that the thankless author inserted a libellous
portrait of his preserver Seckendorf into some thirty copies of this latter work.
Does the reader possess one of these? M. de V. made a present of his to the
Elector Palatine.

* Note that the work entitled in the Italian edition (4to, Venet. 1561),
Lstoria universale de suot tempi is the “history” and not the ‘‘ memoir ” left us
by Leon. Bruni d’Arezzo (1364-1444). The latter is a minute work entitled
‘*Commentarius rerum suo tempore gestarum,” or in the rare Ital. sm. 8vo.
(Venet. 1545), Delle Guerre fatte nelli suot tempt, e degli huomini famosz.

> Under this head would fall for example that singular work (unique as a picture
of signorial tyranny and provincial misery) Esprit Fléchier’s Mémoires sur les
Grands Jours @ Auvergne en 1665 (ed. Chéruel, with notice by Ste. Beuve, and
index, 2nd ed. 8vo, 1862)—or Edmund Spenser’s invaluable ‘* View of the State
of Ireland” (cir. 1596) first published 1633 (8vo, Dublin, 1767), and in some
modern editions appended to his poetical works. His reflections on ‘the
A MEDLEY OF ‘“* MEMOIRS.” 201

who shall enumerate their infinite variety? Besides the memoir
strictly so called, would there not be something to be said of the flitting
and birdseye view of men and things preserved for us in those records of
travel which when well written (and illustrated) are perhaps the most
attractive of all reading? Unfortunately they run to bulk. In the
mind’s eye one sees them, long shelves of folios and quartos—extra
volumes stuffed with maps and plates; the classics of Cook, Anson,
and the other industrious navigators of the eighteenth century, the
earlier records stored up in the vast and costly collections of Hak-
luyt, Purchas, and Ramusio ;! all varieties of character and country,
from the romantic and entertaining letters of Pietro della Valle, to
the business-like travels in (and all round) Revolutionary France? of

successive governors adopting different policies out of jealousy of one another”
have quite a pathetic interest for the nineteenth century reader.

1 The most famous collections would seem to be the following :—

Hakluyt Richd.—Principall Navigations, Voiages and discoveries of the English
Nation. 3 vols. fol. 1598-9. 1600.

De Bry.—Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem et Orient-
alem. 7 or 8 vols. fol. 1590-1634 (a work the full description of which occupies
50 columns of close print in Brunet’s Manual of Bibliography).

Purchas.— Hist. of the World in Sea Voyages and Land Travells, &¢. § vols.
fol. 1625-6.

Ramusio.—Raccolta delle Navigationt « Viaggt. 3 vols. fol. 1563-5 and 1583
{and a supplement of 1606).

In historical interest however these are perhaps surpassed by one little volume,
the Historia Vinlandie Antique seu partis Americe septentrionalts (sm. 8vo,
Havnie, 1707: priced £8 by Mr. Quaritch), which’contains an account of the
discovery and colonization of part of North America by Norsemen at the end of
the tenth century. The fact is also mentioned by Adam of Bremen.

The correct text concerning Cook was never printed till a year or two ago.

2 Cited in Disraeli Czrdos. Lit. for the early account of coffee as a beverage.
These letters, though their form, chronology, &c. (like that of Howell’s) is doubtless
unreliable, are of considerable value and interest. They were first published at
Rome, 4 vols. 4to, 1650-63, and there is an 8vo ed. of about the same date,
also a recent and readable reprint (of which I have a copy) printed at Brighton !
2 vols. 8vo, 1843.
202 A MEDLEY OF “ MEMOIRS.”

the agricultural Arthur Young. All these, all first-hand records of
original observation and experience, are in their way to be classed as:
memoirs. Alas! that the same cannot be said of that monument of
early English, the “Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Mandeville.”
The author or compiler—for Sir John himself is now dismissed as a
not merely imaginative but imaginary individual—probably never
travelled further than to the nearest bookseller’s shop, where;
having secured a second-hand MS. of Pliny (and there can be no
doubt of this fact) he sat himself down to indite a work destined to
prove that the “‘mynde of man,” at least of medizval man,
“may not,” as he mysteriously assures us, ‘‘be comprehended or
withholden.”

The mention of travels suggests another and a rarer class of per-
sonal record. At least one famous author and general, Don Alonzo.
Ercilla y Zuniga (1525-1595), has left us a contemporary account 7
verse—thus reverting to medieval fashion—of his exploits and dis-
coveries. The “ Araucana,’’! which Cervantes thought one of the
finest poems in the Spanish language, was, as the author expressly
tells us, written up nightly like the Pepysian Diary, and has doubtless
an importance to students of the early history of Chili. Yet, however
wonderful as a literary feat, the book cannot be recommended as an
entertaining work.

Isolated epigrams, indeed, short topical poems, and what may be
called ‘‘ metrical tracts,’ often possess in a high degree the virtue
assigned above to the ideal epistle, and arouse proportionate interest.
Such, for example, are the verses of the enlightened Chancellor
L’Hospital upon various incidents in the civil wars of his time, the

" It was first printed 1578-90, and there is an excellent edition with portrait and
plates, 2 vols. 8vo, Madrid, 1776. Of the works of Camoéns a ‘‘fort jolie
édition” was printed by P. Didot, 5 vols. 12mo, 1814-5. The Lusiads is
of course a work of greater historical (and indirectly autobiographical) interest,
poetic beauty in fact being often sacrificed to precision.
A MEDLEY OF “MEMOIRS.” 203,

capture of Metz, of Calais, or of Thionville, and the marriage of Mary
Queen of Scots to Francis II.1_ But the practical reader can content
hiniself with the complete edition of only a few years later—LZ pistol
seu Sermones, 8vo, 1592; and the best are to be found with the
“ Franciscanus ” of Buchanan, and the epigrams of Turnebus in other
contemporary collections (e.g., Basile, 1572). These opuscula, like
prose pamphlets, are usually of moderate length. But if an epic
poem can ever take the place of a memoir or journal, it is no natural
example of the genus, which should be untrammelled by artistic or
other conventions, and, as has been said, pre-eminently readable.

This does not mean that it is our duty, even when it may be our
pleasure, to devour them whole.

There are of course books to be gnawed like bones, books to be
swallowed whole, and books of which the cream should be judiciously
skimmed. In our privileged dialogues with the great, the virtuous, and
the wicked dead, we need not choose to hear all they have to say,
But to know people we must go among them.

The memoir is essentially a rich pasture ground for intelligent
grazing. That study of individual lives, of social atmospheres, which
does so much to “ people the centuries ” easily and effectively for us,
has for its object the priceless, but not superficially demonstrable
knowledge of the great ‘“‘might have been,” ancestor, after all, of the
greater “‘may be”; the philosophy of what we will call “the imper-
turbably probable.” Children, and schoolboys who have not shaken
off the severe candour of infancy are often secretly exasperated at
the importance assigned by historians and preceptors (who appear too
much to have the political game—the sum and the answer—in their

1 Five or six of these pieces, in 4to, of from five to ten leaves apiece, in one
volume I see priced in a Parisian catalogue at 30 and go fr. All are described as.
very rare, and the four leaves *‘ Jw Francisct Delphini et Marie sereniss. Scotorum
Regine nuptias amplissimi virt M. A. carmen,” (1560) as ‘‘the rarest tract in
existence concerning that unfortunate princess.”
204, A MEDLEY OF ‘‘ MEMOIRS.”

own hands) to “ events ” which succeeded in happening only, so to
‘speak, “‘ by the skin of their teeth.” Upon such minds is keenly
borne in, in after life, the joy of hammering and chipping for them-
‘selves in what, in spite of its complex “ faults ” and delusive varieties,
is after all, the bed-rock of history, of grubbing and quarrying in that
ground-soil of human nature out of which “ events,” “institutions,”
and “systems” arise, and into which their @ééris are eternally
decaying.
Vi
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

(1536.)
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

(1536.)

‘Ist irgend eine Hoelle so muss Rom darauf gebaut seyn.”
MarTIn LUTHER.

(va NG ERHAPS it might safely be asserted that few of the
readers who now and then unbend (like the late Mr.
Browning) over a jolly chapter of Rabelais, are
equally acquainted with that humorous author’s cor-
respondence, which has indeed not descended to us
in proportions sufficient to command attention.

‘But these few familiar epistles—addressed almost exclusively to
Geoffrey d’Estissac, Bishop and Baron of Maillezais—have always
been prized by the curious, more especially since the appearance in
the year 1710 of Sainte Marthe’s profusely annotated edition,! which
has supplied such a mine of wealth to modern editors.

The letters of an original writer in his native tongue are generally
worth reading, and those of Rabelais, besides the usual details
of “human interest,” give a sort of back view of various events and
‘negotiations not beneath the dignity of history. One could wish for
such a correspondent in every great capital, at every great historical
epoch. But that would be intellectual luxury. The present work

  

1 Lettres de Francois Rabelais écrites pendant son voyage en Italie, avec observa-
tions historiques, &c. 8vo. Paris. 1710, Earlier editions are very incomplete.
A few more letters (mostly in Latin and of less general interest) will be found in
the editions of Rabelais’s complete works by MM. Burgaud Desmarets and Ralhery.
2 vols. 1857. &c. Passages here italicized are so given in the text of 1710.
208 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

constantly rouses a keen regret that we have not more of it, nay, an
ardent desire to be allowed to cross-examine a writer whom we find
in so thoroughly responsive a mood... ..

Rome is crowded at the time the correspondence begins, with
princes, ecclesiastics, ambassadors, and their suites, each concerned
with their several interests and intrigues, and all alike (including his
Holiness Paul III.—Alessandro Farnese, who had in 1534 suc-
ceeded to the unhappy Clement VII.) awaiting with very mixed
emotions the arrival of the Emperor Charles V., who is approaching
tardily by way of Naples. Among the ecclesiastics is Rabelais’s
patron, the Cardinal Jean du Bellay, littérateur, and Minister of
Francis I., first at the court of Henry VIII. (1527-33), and for
the next two years in Rome, brother of the memoir-writers Martin
and Guillaume, and uncle of the more famous Joachim, poet, and
author of the Défense de la Poésie Francaise. Rabelais himself has
private business of an important nature in the Papal court, no less
than his absolution from the ecclesiastical censures incurred by his
desertion of the abbey of Maillezais, and subsequent irregular life.

He writes, for the rest, as the casual spectator of a period crowded
with interesting events and personalities, touching with tantalizing
lightness the surface of matters of deep and often tragical significance,
in which one only regrets that the worthy bishop,—to whose letters
Rabelais, here on his good behaviour, pays such business-like atten-
tion—was not more interested. The celebrities of the period would
swell a long list. Guicciardini, Paolo Giovio, Jerome Vida, Cardinal
Bembo, and Michael Angelo were at this date elderly men. Ariosto,
if alive, would have been a little more than sixty, Machiavelli but a
few years older. Benvenuto Cellini, Pietro Aretino, and Teofilo.
Folengo (“Merlino Coccaio”) were yet young or in the prime
of life. Luther was still a hale and hearty man, and “ Pro-
testantism ” just become (by the Peace of Nuremberg in 1532) an
established political power in Europe ; while an inevitable “ Coun-
cil” looming in the air terrified and embarrassed the Romish court.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 209.

Italy lay in misery and confusion a helpless victim of the ravages.
begun by the invasion of Charles VIII., and culminating in
Bourbon’s atrocious sack of Rome in 1527,) the prey of petty
despotisms tempered alternately by assassination and foreign inter-
vention. European diplomacy—at this moment centred in the
Italian capital—presents a monstrous tangle of greed and treachery.
Francis I., whose crushing defeat and shameful recovery of his.
liberty were yet fresh in the -public mind, allied with the great
Solyman—invader of Hungaryand terror of Christendom—negotiating
with Lutherans in Dresden, and burning them, to advertise his ortho-
doxy, in Paris; Henry VIII. (whose assistance Francis sought
against Charles V.) now divorcing that Emperor's aunt in open
defiance of Papal interdicts, now defending the Catholic “ Faith ”
and inaugurating Reformation by the impartial persecution of both
religious parties ; Charles the Great, whose armies had plundered
Italy and outraged the very Head of the Church, returning ‘at the
pinnacle of his glory” financially insolvent from an unimportant
victory over the infidel, and making triumphal procession to the
Holy City as the saviour of Italy and Christendom, and announcing
to the assembled powers his confident defiance (so soon to be
falsified) of the arms of France; and, in the background, the
business-like Andrea Doria—‘“ of whom,” Montluc tells us, “the sea
seemed to be afraid ”—played off, by whichever European potentate
could contrive to pay him, against Barbarossa, or the Catholic King.
of Spain.

It is under these circumstances that we find Master Frangois.
Rabelais writing to his friend the Bishop (December, 1535) on the
interesting but not historically important subject of vegetables for
salad. He had despatched already “all the kinds which are eaten

1 The letters of Sadolet (1477-1547) should also be consulted on this period.
(8vo. Lugduni, ap. Seb. Gryphium. 1554.) He was a correspondent of the:
Cardinal Du Bellay, and barely escaped, as he tells us (p. 201) from the ‘* fearful.
destruction ” at Rome with the loss of all his possessions. See p. 7 ante.

P
210 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

at Naples except the pimpernel, which I could not get. I send some,
but not a great quantity now, as I cannot give the courier any
more to catry.....

“The Cardinal Du Bellay and the Bishop of Magon have both
assured me that the settlement (of the little affair about the absolu-
tion) will be granted me gravis, although the Pope as a general rule
only gives gratis what is granted per cameram. I shall only have to
pay the referendaries, proctors, and other such ‘ messers of parch-
ment’ (barbouilleurs de parchemin). If my money runs short I shall
appeal to your charity, as I don’t expect to leave here till the
Emperor does.”

“The thirty crowns you sent me,” he adds in a subsequent letter,
““have almost come to an end. Dress and lodging ran away with so
much money.”

He had spent nothing on “ meschanceté,” nor on food, for he
usually dined with the Cardinal! or the Bishop of Magon ; in fine,
‘would his patron kindly send him a letter of exchange?

By the Pope’s advice Rabelais had carried his case into the court .
as contentious matter (contradictorium), because, if so decided, the
‘sentence could not be questioned in France, as might be the case
with a decision zz camera.

“The Emperor is at Naples, and will leave, as he has written the

1JTn a note (vol. i. p. 293) to the Voages de Montaigne (8vo, Rome, 1774),
‘it is stated that Rabelais ‘‘ carved and handed” the food at the Cardinal’s table,
also that on one of these occasions he made a severely satirical retort ‘‘ omitted in
Perau’s Life of Rabelais” to one of the guests, a prelate who had indulged in some
rather free abuse of the French nation. This, the editor says, is recorded of
Rabelais by hes friend Estienne Tabourot in the edition (of his well-known
“* Bigarrures”?) called the ‘* Little Jesus” edition, ch. vi. p. 128. The biblio-
graphical reader may be able to verify the reference. I cannot find it in the
edition of Rouen, 1591, and Zstéenne Tabourot (1547-1590) was certainly not a
friend of Rabelais’s, who died when the latter was only six years old. Perhaps the
Jean Tabourot referred to in the works (i. 145, ed. 1711) may be the original
authority.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 211

Pope, on the 6th of January. The city is full of Spaniards. His
Holiness gives him up half the palace, and the whole township of
‘S. Peter’s for his people, and is having 3,000 beds got ready in the
Roman fashion, that 7s to say, mattresses. For the town is absolutely
unprovided with them since its sack by the Landknechts. Also he
is providing hay, straw, oats, rye, and barley; and wine—all that is
on the wharves. Jt will cost him a pretty penny, which in his great
and obvious poverty, worse than that of any Pope for 300 years past,
he would be glad to avoid.

“The Romans have not yet settled what attitude they had best
-adopt, and there have been numerous meetings of the senators, con-
servators” (a sort of Board of Works), ‘and governor, but they cannot
‘come to an agreement.

“The Emperor has notified them by his ambassador that he does
not at all mean his soldiers to live at free quarters,—that is, without
paying,—but just as shall please the Pope. This greatly vexes his
Holiness, who sees that the Emperor only wants to see with what
consideration he means to treat him and his people.

“By the advice of the Consistory the Holy Father has also sent
‘two legates, the Cardinal of Sienna (Giovanni Piccolomini) and Car-
dinal Cesarini. Salviati and Rodolfo also have gone, and M. de
Saintes with them, on account of the Florentine affair, I understand,
and the difference between Alessandro de’ Medici and Filippo
Strozzi, whose property the said Duke wanted to confiscate. It is
very considerable, for next to the Fuggers of Augsburg in Germany,” ?

1 In a letter to Jerome Froben of Basle, Roger Ascham writing from Augsburg a
‘little after this date says, ‘‘I have seen the Greek library of Jacob Fugger and have
a catalogue of the manuscripts.” It contained many works which had never been
published, and Ascham expresses a regret that the owner should not have made a
more generous use of his property, stigmatising the celebrated bibliophile as a
“* Bibliotaph, or book-burier.” Aschami Epistole. Oxonia. 1703. p. 253.

Having mentioned this, it is only fair to add that our own copy of Cassiodorus
‘(Variarum Epp. Libri xii. Folio. Augsburg. 1533.) bears the inscription in a
bold cinque-cento hand—‘‘ Ex liberalitate M. & Q. T. Joannis Jacobi Fuggert

P 2
212 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

——the firm celebrated for their connection with the sale of indulgences
—“he is considered the richest merchant in Christendom. Strozzi
had placed agents in Rome to poison or assassinate the Duke at all
hazards, who hearing of this obtained leave of the Pope to carry arms.
and went about with a guard of thirty soldiers armed to the teeth.”

At this date—the age of Lucrezia Borgia and of the Thyestean
horrors of the House of Este (the patrons of Ariosto and Boiardo) at
Ferrara,—poisoning and assassination had perhaps by a few years
(seeing that Alexander VI. died in 1509) passed the very apogee of
their popularity. As to the general morale of the upper classes, one
may doubt if it was not worse in the self-conscious staleness of its.
crime and vice, than the simpler darkness of the feudal Middle Ages.

To this consideration, and to the affairs of the House of Este, the
gossip of Rabelais will again draw our attention. In the reference to
Florence we touch upon a subject-matter to which we have elsewhere
referred.1 The young Alexander Medici, first Duke of Florence, and
affianced to the daughter of Charles V., was murdered two years
later by his cousin Lorenzino, who himself was assassinated by order
of Cosmo I. in 1548. At the present date Strozzi, the freethinking
millionaire-conspirator, who had helped to restore Alexander and
been expelled by him, was attempting to return at the head of a
faction of ‘“fuor-usciti.” Failing in this attempt, he was subse-
quently imprisoned, tortured, and, as some say, privately put to
death.

“Hearing that Strozzi was gone off with the Cardinals to the
Emperor, and was offering 400,000 ducats to any one who would
inform against the Duke, the latter set out from Florence, leaving
Cardinal Cybo as governor, and arrived here about 23 o’clock the
day after Christmas Day, entering by St. Peter’s gate with fifty light
horse, in white armour, lance in hand, and about 100 arquebusiers.”

et Hieronymi Wolfii.” (?) Jerome Wolf (1516-1581) philologer, editor of Demos-
thenes, Suidas, &c., &c. }
1 See ch.v., p. 197.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 213

There was no ceremony on his arrival, only “the Emperor’s am-
bassador” went to meet him. The Duke had a short audience of
the Pope, and went off next morning. We then pass off, in a provok-
ing manner, to the great news of the day.

“During the past week the Holy Father has received letters
describing the defeat of the Turk by the Sophi, King of Persia.”
The Cardinal Du Bellay had the report confirmed from another
(French) source. It was the greatest slaughter known for 400 years.
On the Turkish side were killed 40,000 horses. And think what a
number of footmen must have fallen on both sides! For among
soldiers not given to running away mon solet esse incruenta victoria.
The principal defeat was near a little place called Koni (Khoi), not
far from Tauris, for which city the Turk and the Sophi are at strife.
The other near Betelis (Bitlis in Koordistan).”

The Turk had divided his army; ‘a bad plan,” adds the sage
Rabelais, ‘‘ before you have conquered. Zhe French could have told
you that, when the Duke of Albany (i.e. John Stuart, son of Alexander
the brother of James III.) took off the flower and strength of their
army before Pavia.”

At the news of this defeat Barbarossa has withdrawn to Constanti-
nople to secure the safety of the country, but swearing by his good
gods that it is a mere nothing to the power of Turkey. But the Em-
peror is relieved from the necessity of preparing to meet a Turkish
invasion of Sicily intended in the early spring. This may give
Christendom a good long rest, and those who exact tithes from the
Church, eo pretextu, of providing resources against the Turk, will
be hard put to it for cogent arguments.”

Solyman the Great after the capture of Belgrade, of Rhodes, and
the defeat of the Hungarians at Mohacz, had become involved,
about 1530, in a struggle against Charles V. and the Republic of
Venice. Buta month later we find Rabelais writing: “I told you
of the Sophi’s victory at Betelis. The Turk has not been slow in
avenging it. Two months later he fell upon the Sophi with such
214 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

fury as never was seen, wasted a large district of Mesopotamia with
fire and sword, and drove him back beyond the Taurus. He (the
Sophi) is now having a fleet of galleys built on the Tanais for the
purpose of a descent on Constantinople. Barbarossa is still there,
having garrisoned Bona and Algiers in case the Emperor should
attack him. ;

“T send you his portrait, drawn from the life; and a plan of
Tunis and the maritime towns of the neighbourhood.”

With a letter begun on December 30, 1535, he forwards to the
Bishop another present (which many a bibliophile would be glad
to possess), “a book of prognostications, about which all Rome is
occupied. It is entitled De Lversione Europe. For my part I don’t
place the least confidence in such things, But one never saw Rome
so given over to these vanities and divinations as at this moment:

I take the reason to be—
Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus.”

Upon such “ vanities and. divinations” the author (or editor?) of
the Prognostication Pantagrueline—a black-letter edition of which
appeared at Lyons in 1535—speaks of course as an expert.

He also sends the good bishop an almanack for the coming year
1536 ; a copy of the Papal Brief directing the necessary preparations
for the arrival of the Emperor (of which more anon); a copy
of the “Entry” of Charles V. into Messina and Naples; and the
funeral oration delivered at the burial of the late Duke of Milan.

This latter may have been of an improving nature, for the said
Duke, F. Mario Sforza, a son of “ Louis the Moor,” died universally
detested by his subjects for the exactions he imposed in order to pay
tribute to the economical Emperor who had placed him on the
throne.

January 1536 we return to the Florentine intrigues. Rabelais is
unable to deliver M. d’Estissac’s letter to M. de Saintes because the
latter, with the Cardinals aforesaid, is still at Naples.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 215

““T understand their business with the Emperor has not terminated
_as they wished. In fact he told them peremptorily that having
established Alessandro de’ Medici in the duchy of Florence at their
express request and instance, and that of the late Pope Clement, and
contrary to his own intention, to depose him now would be to act
like a fool, doing one moment what one undid the next ; therefore
they had better make up their minds to recognise him as their lord,
and obey him loyally.

“As to their complaints against the Duke, he would take cogni-

zance of them.”
~So the matter of the Grand Duke was left to be settled, a little
later, by the dagger of Lorenzino.

Meanwhile the Pope’s ambassadors had succeeded in inducing
Charles to defer his coming till the end of February. (As a matter
of fact he did not enter Rome till the middle of April, according toa
MS. account of his peregrinations cited in the notes of Sainte Marthe.)
“Tf I had as many crowns,” Rabelais mischievously remarks, “as
the Pope would give days of pardon and other such favours proprio
motu, de plenitudine potestatis, to whoever would defer it for five
or six years, I should be richer than Jacques Ceur! They haye
begun great preparations here for his reception, and, by order of the
Pope, made a new road by which he is to enter, that is to say, from
the gate of S. Sebastian, towards the Campidoglio, the Temple of
Peace and the Amphitheatre ; and he is to pass under the ancient
triumphal arches of Constantine, Vespasian, Titus, Numatianus, and
others, thence along by St. Mark’s and by the Campo di Fiori in
front of the Palazzo Farnese, where the Pope used to live” (the
Palazzo Farnese was built by Paul III. out of the ruins of the Colos-
seum), “then past the Banks (via de’ Banchi), and under the walls of
the castle of S. Angelo.

“In order to prepare and level this route more than two hundred
houses and three or four churches have been demolished to the very
ground, which many people take as an ill omen, The day of the Conver-
216 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

sion of St. Paul the Holy Father went to hear mass at St. Paul’s, and
feasted all the cardinals. Afterwards he returned by the above-
mentioned route and lodged at the Palazzo San Giorgio. But it ts
pitiful to see the ruins of the houses that have been destroyed ; and
no payment or compensation made to any of the owners !”

These “‘ preparations” for the coming of Charles V. seem incre-
dible to modern ears, and considering the deplorable state of Italy,
we can well imagine with how sincere a welcome that greatest of
earthly monarchs was received. The statement of various historians,
quoted by Prescott, that “‘it was found necessary to remove the ruins
of an ancient Temple of Peace,” presumably the one supposed to
have been built by Vespasian and destroyed by fire in the time of
Commodus), and that ¢/zs was an ill omen, would appear (if we are
to believe Rabelais) to give a very insufficient account of the matter.
Such an appalling destruction of property may give us an idea of
the respect it was thought necessary to show at this date to the head
of the Holy Roman Empire.

“To-day the Venetian ambassadors have arrived, four fine old
fellows, quite grizzled. They are on their way to the Emperor at
Naples. The Pope has sent all his household before them ; cubicu-
laries, gentlemen of the chamber, Janissaries (Gzannizzer1, solicitors of
the court! ), and Landknechts ; and the cardinals have despatched
their mules in pontifical state.

“On the 7th the ambassadors of Sienna were likewise admitted to
a state audience, and made their harangue before the Consistory.
The Pope replied in excellent Latin, and they left scon afterwards on
their way to Naples. J have no doubt all the Italian States will
send embassies to the Emperor, who knows well enough how to play
his game of getting money out of them, as has been discovered in the
past ten days.” Of these imperial *“ devices” Rabelais promises to
tell us more later on. Meanwhile he mentions the death at Naples,

1 A college of one hundred “Janissaries” was among those established (for
purely financial purposes) by Alexander VI.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 217

“‘a fortnight ago,” of the Prince of Piedmont. Louis of Savoy, a
nephew of Charles V., was being educated with Philip II. when cut
off by fever at the age of thirteen.

“The Emperor has given him a splendid funeral” (we may pre-
sume at the expense of the Neapolitans), “at which he was present in
person.”

The King of Portugal (John III., son of the famous Emmanuel,
and also a nephew of the Emperor) had suddenly recalled his am-
bassador from Rome, who came “all booted and spurred to say
good-bye to the Cardinal Du Bellay.” Moreover a Portuguese
gentleman who seemed to have made himself obnoxious by pleading
the cause of the Jews baptised in Emmanuel’s reign, and persecuted,
for the usual financial reasons, by the present King, had been
““ assassinated in open day, close to the bridge of S. Angelo.” From
which two events Rabelais doubts but there is some insurrection on
Soot in Portugal.

It is in a short note dated January 28, 1536, that we learn the
Turkish victories in Mesopotamia, and (incidentally) that the Em-
peror was then occupying the Duchy of Milan, the subject of so much
contention and evasion on the part of Charles and the French king.
‘Twelve hundred Landknechts despatched for that purpose had,
Rabelais tells us, wearied of being at sea, and, on suspicion of
treachery, murdered their pilot and crew. Being, however, unable
to manage the vessel transporting them, all were drowned within a
stone’s throw of port !

So we revert to the all-absorbing topic.

“The Emperor (February 15, 1536) is still at Naples, and expected
here at the end of the month. Great preparations are being made
for his coming, and lots of triumphal arches. His four marshals of
apartments are already here, two Spaniards, a Burgundian, and a
Fleming.

“It is pitiful to see the ruins of churches, palaces, and houses
218 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

which the Pope has had pulled down and demolished to make a level
highway for him. And for the expense besides he has taxed the
College of Cardinals, officers of the court, artisans, even the very
water-carriers.

“The whole city is full of foreigners.

“On the sth arrived the Cardinal of Trent in Germany (Bernard
de Clos) in full state, more sumptuous than that of the Pope. In
his train were more than a hundred Germans in gala costume, red
robes striped with yellow, and embroidered on their right sleeves a
sheaf of wheat, bound, bearing the motto uzztas.

“I gather that he is most anxious for the peace and settlement for
all Christendom, and for the Council in any case.” The Council of
Trent, one may observe, was convoked in 1542. ‘“I was present when
he (De Clos) observed to the Cardinal Du Bellay, ‘ Zhe Holy Father,
the Cardinals, Bishops, and Prelates of the Church shrink from the
Council’ and will not hear of it, in spite of reproaches from the secular
arm, but I see the time approaching, and not far off, when the
Church will be compelled to demand it, and the laity will refuse to
listen to them. That will be when they have taken from the Church
all the wealthy patrimony given in days when the Church autho-
rities by means of frequent councils, used to preserve peace and unity
among the secular’”—a “disestablishment” to some extent carried
out by Henry VIII. ; but we do not know that the Catholic Church
ever showed the predicted appetite for councils.

Rome, it would seem, must have been quite occupied in watching
the arrival and departure of distinguished guests.

On the 3rd arrived no less a personage than Andrea Doria, whose
judicious patriotism had now raised him to the height of his renown ;.
but he arrived, as Rabelais confides to us, “at a somewhat awkward
moment. No honours were paid him on his arrival,” except that

1 In the fifteenth century it was a crime (of Jése-majesté) to speak of councils.
See Platina’s singular account of the persecution he suffered at the hands of
Paul Il. Vite Pontificum.
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 219

Signor Pier Luigi (of whom we hear more presently) “conducted
him to the palace of the Cardinal Chamberlain, a representative of
the celebrated Genoese house of Spinola. The next day he visited
the Pope, and the next departed for Genoa, the Emperor having
given him atenicrions “to see what way the wind blows, in France,
in respect of a war.’

‘“‘ Certain news has been received here of the death of the late
Queen of England, and they say also that her daughter is very ill.”

At the decease of the divorced Catherine of Aragon, Mary was.
twenty-one. We here stumble on a detail of English history. ‘“‘The
Bull preparing against the King of England to excommunicate him
and proscribe and interdict his kingdom,” which purported to render
void even mercantile contracts with a heretical people—a provision
obviously affecting not only Englishmen—“ has nevertheless, as I
wrote you, not yet passed the Consistory, on account of the articles.
De commeatibus externorum et commerciis mututs, to which his grace
the Cardinal Du Bellay and the Bishop of Magon made opposition
on behalf of the King (se. Francis I.) by reason of his interests in.
the matter. It has been postponed till the arrival of the Emperor ;”
an epoch almost as important, in these letters, and as vaguely deter-
mined as the coming of the Coquecigrues, when kingdoms, we know,.
were to be redistributed, and all diplomatic matters straightened
out.

Before that, however, Rabelais’s own little business was brought
to a happy conclusion.

“T have, thank Heaven, settled all my affairs, and it has only cost
me the drafting of the Bulls, the Holy Father having of his own free
will accorded me the composition. I think you will find the means
quite satisfactory. I have got nothing by the said Bull which is not
legal and right. But as to the formalities I have been put to a deal
of thought. I can assure you I have hardly made any use of. the
Cardinal or of the Ambassador ” (Du Vely, Francis’s representative
at the Imperial court) “though they offered very kindly to employ no
220 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

only their own recommendation but even the very name of his
Majesty.”

Rabelais’s offence, as appears from the absolution granted him on
the 17th day of January, 1536, was that he had deserted the abbey of
Maillezais to which he had been attached, and led a vagabond life in
the habit of a secular priest, to the’ great scandal of the Church,
finally taking up the profession of medicine. The ‘composition ”
accorded by Paul III. allowed him without prejudice to his eccle-
‘slastical profession, to practise as a doctor wherever he pleased, but
for charity, and gratuitously. But his generous patron, the Cardinal
Du Bellay, having about this time found his services useful, pre-
‘sented him with a competent living and the cure of the village of
Meudon.

This was the second of at least three occasions on which Rabelais
was near coming into dangerous conflict with supreme authority. On
the third and last, when that authority was audaciously derided, the
reputation for good and evil of the learned satirist was such as to
require and justify the protection of a powerful monarch, while more
than one kindred spirit expiated the Rabelaisian freedom of their
opinions at the stake.

At this date a few unsuccessful editions of medical works (such as
the selections from Hippocrates and Galen, printed at Lyons in
1532), had ushered in the first absolutely anonymous sketch of
the great satire destined to set all the monastic world by the ears,
and warranted by the pious author himself to sell fifty-four times as
fast as the Bible!

But to return to the letters. Besides his employment about the
eminent and enlightened Du Bellay, Rabelais, as we see, was also
rendering some kind of services to the Bishop of Maillezais, his
ecclesiastical superior. Among other things he had been searching
the registers of the palace to find a record of the resignation of a
certain Dom Phihppes (of the aforesaid abbey) in favour of his
nephew, “I have had diligent search made,” he writes “under the
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 221

years 1529, 30, and 31.” Moreover he had “tipped” the clerks
of the registry two gold crowns, as it was troublesome work. The
Bishop, moreover, does not specify exactly enough what is wanted.
“You must tell me the man’s déocese ; and whether the resignation
was supposed to be made by way of exchange (fermutationis causa):
or absolutely (pure e¢ simpliciter).” Anyhow the clerks could find
nothing. “So I think there must be something suspicious about the
case.”

As to the vegetable seeds, D’Estissac should clearly have been
satished. Those despatched were “the very best known in Naples ;
what the Holy Father has sown in his private garden at Belvedere.”

 

 

Device on last leaf of AZ. Hieronymi Vide Poemata. Lugduni. 8vo. 1533. Ap- Sedasé.
Gryphium, for whoin Rabelais had a few years before been employed in correcting proofs.

Other inquiries of the Bishop, Rabelais, we can well understand,
could answer without any research into the records of the time. But
the genealogy of papal families was a complicated matter requiring
infinite tact for its elucidation.

“You ask me,” says the Secretary, “what relation ts Pier-Luigt
(Farnese) ¢o the Pope.”

This injudicious conundrum lets in by a side-door to what might
be a voluminious chronique scandaleuse.

“ Scachez que le Pape ne fust jamais marié.” There was not much
222 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

in that, but we may follow the matter a little further, turning from
the letter thus prefaced, of Rabelais’s, to Bernardo Segni’s precious
Lstorie Fiorentine, which cover all this period. Pier-Luigi, after-
wards Duke of Parma and Piacenza, but of whom more must not be
said, poses as the blackest figure of a by no means mezzotinted age.
Borgia, Este, Sforza, Medici, Farnese! What a criminal calendar
might be composed of these great names if one knew but where, in
common fairness, to begin !

Roderic Borgia, better known as Alexander VI., who pur-
chased the headship of the Church in 1492 with several mules’
burdens of silver, first began the practice of calling the ‘“ Pope’s
nephews” by something like their right name. His virtues, Guicciar-
dini naively tells us, were “ considerably surpassed ” by his vices. It
was his practice to make cardinals (he appointed forty-three in the
eleven years of his Papacy) at fees varying from 10,000 to 30,000
crowns, and then to poison them off, until, “hoist with his own petard,”
he perished by the inadvertence of a servant in 1503.2, Among the
cardinals surviving him was Alessandro Farnese, afterwards (as in
these letters) Paul III. The good fame of this dignitary was sullied,
Segni tells us, by the suspicion aroused in many minds (the sudden
death of Cardinal Contarini in 1515 was a case in point) that he also
practised the Borgian art, had in fact deen taught it by Alexander, who
conferred on him this favour in return for the love of his “ beautiful
sister.” The sister was, it is hardly necessary to say, married to
some one else. Her husband heard of the Spaniard’s intrigues and
disapproved of them ; ‘“‘ somme toute,” as Rabelais tells the story, “77
Ja tua.” Pope Alexander was grieved, and gave young Farnese a
cardinal’s hat and other desirable things “to console him.” When
the latter attained the Papacy in 1534 at the age of sixty-eight, he lost
no time in providing for his family. This and, a little later, a per-

1 A fund of interesting and curious information upon this subject and period will
Ibe found in L, Cappelli’s excellent edition of the Letters of Ariosto. Bologna. 1866.
2 See p. 198 ante. ,
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 223

sistent hostility to the power of Spain, were his leading motives of
action.

Behind the festive preparations above described for the coming of
Charles V., we discern in the letters, and yet more clearly in Segni’s
chronicle, the Pope hesitating whether or no to fly from Rome, and
finally deciding to arm such force as he could collect and remain to
welcome “ Caesar.”

Rabelais has mentioned the visit of the Duke of Florence ; but he
does not tell us that when Alexander Medici, scarcely announced,
hurried up the Vatican stairs and suddenly appeared in the Papal
presence, Paul III.’s first thought was that an attempt was being.
made to seize his sacred person. Paul was strongly suspected of having
had a hand in poisoning the Cardinal Hippolyto Medici. Alexander
was more probably himself guilty of this crime, not to mention others.
The Cardinal had previously tried to blow up his cousin the Duke
with gunpowder (novel means which must have seemed an agreeable
relief to the dreary interchanges of “veleno” with its painfully
familiar symptoms) and failed. According to another account
Francesco Berni, a true compeer and contemporary of Rabelais,
famed as the licentious inventor of burlesque, was employed by one
of these two noble villains to poison the other, and having declined
the task (which shows that he was not altogether devoid of scruples),
was very naturally poisoned himself, by way of closing an unpleasant
family episode.

The Cardinal Medici may have been a cardinal too many, ob-
structing the advancement of the Farnese family. At any rate, all the
Pope’s xifoti,! including the infamous Pier-Luigi (who, after holding

1 Upon the vast and dark subject of Papal family jobbery and personal iniquity
the reader may refer to Gregorio Leti’s work // Nipotismo di Roma, 12m0, s. |.
(Amsterdam), 1667, which (besides being. one of the rarest and most beautiful
productions of the Elzevir press) is full of curious anecdotes, and I suppose the
most valuable composition left by its author, although the Déaloght Histordcd dell’

Academico incognito (Geneva, 1665) are worth having, which can hardly be said
of the Vita di Donna Olimpia Maldachind (sister-in-law of Innocent X.) published
224 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME,

the “apple of the world” at the solemn reception of Charles V. in
St. Peter’s, and some ten years of despotic iniquity, was finally assas-
sinated with every horror known to long-stored revenge in 1 547),
received the hat, and there was even, Rabelais adds in his own style,.
a little “cardinalicule” of the second generation. Whether the Holy
Father did or did not cause the death of Hippolyto, his assistance to
the Strozzi party against Alexander Medici seems to have availed the
latter very little.

The efforts of the Cardinals Salviati and Rodolfo in what Rabelais
has called “the Florentine affair” were, as we soon learn, quite
unsuccessful.

On their return from Naples we hear the story in detail. Strozzi
and his friends offered the Emperor a ml/ion in gold, which must
have been a considerable temptation to the impecunious Charles,
and undertook to finish the fortifications of the citadel, ‘‘ La Rocca,”
at Florence, to have it garrisoned by competent troops in the Imperial
interest, and to pay the Emperor an annual tribute of 100,000 ducats.
Such was the market price of the right to oppress Florence.

The exasperating Charles, however, received Duke Alexander on his
arrival among the political competitors at Naples very favourably ; and
the latter, now the affianced husband of Margaret of Austria (marriage
being clearly as important a diplomatic agency as assassination) seems
to have played his cards well.

Having lavished vast sums on the fortress aforesaid, he had
judiciously caused to be painted on its portals the Imperial Eagle with
wings, Rabelais assures us, ‘‘as big as the windmills of Mirebelais, /o
show that he holds only of the Emperor” —an elaborate piece of flattery.

under the name of L’Abate Gualdi, 1666. See a notice in Appendix to Ranke’s
Hist. of the Popes. In the first-named work (Pt. ii. p. 8) we are told that ‘‘ Duke
Valentine (Czsar Borgia), robbed, murdered, outraged, and trampled on all laws
human and divine at his own pleasure, without thought or scruple, but what was worse
was that he covered these monstrous vices with the mantle of the Papal authority,
and commonly excused them with the remark ch’eglt sapeva bentssimo quel che
Saceva perche il suo padre che gli lo permetteva haveva seco lo Spirito Santo!
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 225

Alexander Medici had also “tyrannised so adroitly,” in the family
style, as to get up a popular demonstration “ xomine communitatis,”
in his own favour. In fact, as the historian Francesco Guicciardini
himself argued the Duke’s cause, we might presume that there was
something to allege in his favour besides the heraldic work of art
above mentioned. Guicciardini, however, defended his vices, which,
as in the case of Pier-Luigi, were-of a kind to affect the happiness of
other people, by pointing out that he was very young, which may not
have satisfied every one.?

“Tntrigues””—or what is briefly summarized under that favourite
term by many a modern historian—seem often a mere conventional
stepping-stone from one state of things to another. To the Bishop
of Maillezais the “true inwardness” of certain contemporary events
must have been clearly apparent.

Thus, in one Rabelaisian epistle we have a complete cameo of
another historic “affair,” not unimportant in its day, of which
Ludovico Ariosto could also have told us something. The Duke
of Ferrara was engaged in a long dispute with the Pope as to
the amount of the fine to be paid for his investiture to the estates
held in fee of the Papacy. Paul III. had reduced his demand
to the sum of 50,000 crowns. The Duke offered 35,000, and there
they stuck. A representative, one Jannet, came from Ferrara to
argue the case.?

In cash the only difference between the exalted disputants was
15,000 crowns ; but there was a further point. The Pope wanted to
be recognised as feudal lord of a// the Ferrarese territories. The
Duke would only do homage for those parts for which his father had

1 Alexander Medici is usually represented as a youthful monster of iniquity.
That he was not devoid of justice and humanity, or at least of a considerable sense
of humour, may be inferred from an entertaining record of him which ran through
four or five editions before the end of the century. <AZtdond e sentenze el S. Ales-
sandro Medici, primo Duca di Firenze. Vinezia. Giolito. 4to, 1564, by
Alessandro Ceccheregle.

2 Lettere dt Ludovico Ariosto. Bologna, 1866 (cited above).
226 WITH RABELAIS AT ROME.

rendered it in accordance with a decision of Charles V., in the time of
Clement VII.

“ The point (/a finesse) of this lies in the fact that the Emperor has
no money, and is looking for it in every quarter. He borrows of
everybody, and zazle tout le monde gwil peut.

“When he arrives here he will of course try it on the Pope.
He will argue that he has engaged in all these wars for the sake of
Italy and his Holiness, and that 4e (the Pope) must contribute to
them.

“The Pope will answer that he hasn’t a penny ; nay, he will pro-_
duce proof positive of his poverty. Then the Emperor will ask him
for the Duke of Ferrara’s money, which he might get by a stroke of the
pen (lequel ne tient qu’a un fiat).

“ You see how mysteriously these matters work.” We do.

A word upon postal arrangements may conclude this véchauffé of
the gossip of a special correspondent of the sixteenth century.

The transmission and delivery of the letters was a matter of some
care and anxiety. There was no organised post, and it was a far cry
even to such irregular facilities as were enjoyed by Mme. de Sévigné.
Rabelais’s own replies, he thought, were tolerably safe as far as Lyons,
for so far they were carried “in the sealed packet which is for the
business of the King.” This was there opened by the Governor, whose
secretary—‘“ a friend of mine ”—kindly distributed them to certain
merchants, of Poictiers and others, by whom the rest of the forwarding
was effected. .

‘Rabelais addressed his letters thus “under cover” to the care of
Michel Parmentier, a bookseller (is he otherwise known ?) living at
“the crown of Basle,” whom he advises D’Estissac, when sending
anything important, to propitiate with an occasional crown enclosed.
Rabelais himself had found presents of little knicknacks from the
Roman shops of considerable use for this purpose. “A little,” he
sagely remarks, “often goes a long way with these good people.”
‘Of bankers—and this is rather strange news—he writes to the Bishop :
WITH RABELAIS AT ROME. 227

“T agree with you that they are not to be trusted.” They were as
likely as not to open the packets for themselves and appropriate the
contents—gratuity, we presume, and all! Gentlemen, he calls them,
of “ peu de foy.”

In this respect, if we may believe Rabelais’s brief chronicle of the
time, perhaps they were not much worse than their most distinguished

customers.
VII.
THE WIT OF HISTORY.
THE WIT OF HISTORY.

HOULD we ask of the idlest and most discursive of
readers what it is that on the dullest of pages most
surely arrests his vagrom attention—he would probably
reply—‘ Short sentences in inverted commas.” Per-
sonal remarks, epigrams, apophthegms of wit or

wisdom—for this is what such quotations usually mean—do they

not often furnish the best memoria technica of past episodes, or
at least the most piquant source which flavours the solid joints of
historical “ information ” ?

Of the memoir and the pamphlet we have spoken elsewhere. The
“ Wit of History,” in the best sense of the words, should represent
the quintessence of an ephemeral tract, the most “ instantaneous ”
of memoirs, the few words smacking of the time, the place, the
occasion in which dazzling genius or rude common sense catches
and preserves for us a memorable scene, a long-lost point of view, or
collects and throws into artistic and imperishable form

‘* Le bon gros sens qui court les rues.”

Or again it may be taken to comprise all these isolated utterances
of distinguished people, works of art more or less venerable, set and
framed, as it were, in the interest or admiration of average humanity.
Both species are of unfailing interest to the class of persons vaguely
known as ‘‘ Posterity.”

Alas! that the ideal specimens of the genus are far from being as
common as they should be, that the best, the most inevitable have

 
232 , THE WIT OF HISTORY.

unfortunately not always been the most popular, while, on the other
hand, very inferior specimens—corrupted, badly “stuffed” and
“restored” by Vandal taste, have often found and long retained a
place in the museums of history.

Great, however, in any case is the force of the traditional Jon mot,
or even the simplest remark bearing upon a great occasion.

In early boyhood—the season when faith is green—it gave many
of us a simple pleasure to believe that the Duke of Wellington, at a
crisis in the Battle of Waterloo exclaimed—‘“ Up, Guards, and at
them!” It seems an obvious enough thing to have said. Yet at a
later stage of our education, this romantic belief is sapped by the
gradual conviction that the “Iron Duke,” with his natural reserve,
merely observed—‘“‘ Now, gentlemen, if you please.”

Lastly, as even this splendid vision fades on our riper manhood,
we learn with pain from some scornful writer in a newspaper (who
has that very moment acquired the knoweldge—and this is what
makes him so scornful—from the latest specialist on the subject) that
the general in question never made either of these observations, was,
in fact, in a different part of the field, and gave his orders through
an aide-de-camp, who perhaps merely waved his sword, pointed, and
uttered, in his impatience, an imprecation devoid of literary interest
which no one distinctly heard, or has accurately remembered.

These things, which we merely take as types, may or may not be so.

It matters very little. Such exclamations throw but little light
upon the facts, which are tolerably well known.

At any rate, the reader acquainted with the works of M. Victor
Hugo? will not ask if the dramatic Za Garde meurt mais ne se vend
gas / has any foundation, recorded though it be in the contemporary
epistle of Mrs. Col. Rawdon Crawley, C.B.

General Cambronne used to blush when he was asked the question,
seeing that he not only surrendered, but survived till the year 1842

1 Les Misérables, Pt. ii. 1.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 233

The famous phrase, apparently invented by one Rougemont, a
journalist, is to British ears a turn “too French.”

If Frenchmen have said as many good things as other people,
they have probably, in their self-conscious moments, spoilt or in-
vented many more. It was Barrtre who concocted what may be
called the maritime pendant to “La Grande meurt, &c.” in that
episode of the Vengeur, captured June rst, 1794, in the engagement
between Lord Howe and Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse. The story
supplied a whole page of rhapsody to Carlyle.

Bi, Be “Ocean yawns abysmal. Down rushes the Vengeur
carrying ‘Vive la République’ ‘along with her unconquerable into
eternity.”

It is interesting to note that an officer of H.M.S. Brunswick, the
vessel engaged with the Vengeur, survived to set the excitable
historian right. For the Vengeur sank as a British prize, and with
British seamen on board her, her own captain and half her crew
being safe in one of Howe’s men of war. The page of rhapsody was
accordingly cancelled, or rather ironically explained away in subse-
quent editions. The survival of the truth seems here, as elsewhere,
rather a happy accident. A “good thing,” and in particular a good
saying—for sayings leave less trace in the phenomenal world than
doings—whether authentic or not, once reported is sure to live, and
very likely to grow and multiply until the serious historian comes
round and prunes the plant severely, or digs the weed up by the
roots. The Duke of Buckingham and other courtiers never wearied
of hearing King Charles II. tell his stories ten times over, because
they were always “enriched by some new circumstance,” but one
feels sure that none. but the dull and prosaic circumstances were
ever omitted.

The same monarch, whose conversational wit was, as we know
from an equally respectable source, exactly proportioned to the un-
wisdom of his general conduct, has bequeathed us specimens of the
“historic witticism” in the celebrated anecdote of the. Duke of
234 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

York, which, as Dr. William King tells us,' the old Lord Cromarty
used often to repeat.

Charles, attended only by the last-mentioned peer and the Duke
of Leeds, habitually took a turn up Constitution Hill as far as
Hyde Park. It was there that one morning the Duke of York—
who had been hunting on Hounslow Heath, and was returning in his
coach—as the guards surrounding the vehicle stopped at sight
of the King, immediately got out and rallied his royal brother on the
danger to which he exposed himself by such lonely promenades.
‘No kind of danger, James ;” was the King’s answer, ‘‘ for I am sure
no man in England will take away my life to make you king.”

Nothing could be better than this, as a sample of the simple,
lucid, and popular doz mot historique, which for earlier and less
reticent generations did what a cartoon in Punch does for the
modern Englishman.

The member of Parliament who has just written a book upon
“ Personality in History” (an ambiguous title which, however, does
not refer to rude observations like that of Philip II. to William of
Orange—“ Not the States, but you, you, you’) should have devoted a
chapter to historic wit. M. Edouard Fournier did this for French
history in a fascinating little volume published some thirty years ago,”

1 King, W. (1685-1763), Poldtécal and Literary Anecdotes of his own times
(8vo, Murray, 1818), p. 62; and see Buckingham’s Short Character of Charles Lf,
Works. 1714. Vol. ii.

Some interesting details upon this period will be found in [B. L. de Muralt’s]
Lettres sur les Anglois, les Francots et les Voiages. 8vo. Cologne. 1725. It was
the fashion, this author tells us, for all sorts and conditions of people to row
about on the Thames and chaff one another (‘‘se dire des injures en passant ”’).
The boatmen told you how they ‘‘ scored off” the King by calling him a ‘‘ chémney-
sweep” —a delicate allusion to his complexion.

2 LP’ Esprit dans Ul Histoire, recherches sur les mots historigues. Paris. 1857.
The author cites Brotier’s Paroles remargquables (1790); Lancelotti, Farfallont
degli anticht historict (Venet. 1736: French transl. 2 vols. 1770); and other
similar works. M. Charles de Rozan’s modestly entitled work Les petztes Leno-
vances de la. Conversation (6th ed. Hetzel, 1872) will also be found useful to the
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 235.

which the student will find an invaluable addition (and introduction):
to his “original authorities.” If M. Fournier erred, it was on the
side of scepticism, but his work shows extensive research coupled
with the necessary sense of humour.

It is painful to many of us to have our fondest illusions dissipated
for the sake of what sometimes seems a pedantic accuracy. But to:
jump at once to the most famous of all French “ mots historiques,”
there seems to be no authority for the celebrated constitutional
dictum of Louis XIV. The story usually runs as follows :—

On a celebrated occasion in 1655 that monarch, then aged seven-
teen, entered the Parliament in red coat, grey hat, and hunting boots.
(later writers give him a whip, which doubtless adds to the effect),
and in a brief altercation with the soi-d/sant representatives of the
nation exclaimed curtly (according to the tradition), “ L’état! 2’éat
cest mot! The remark, which is not recorded by the journalist of
the Parliament, is probably an anachronism of a species not un-
common. <A? ¢he date, that is, it did not correspond with fact,
although there is no reason to doubt that the young king spoke as
the well-drilled pupil of Mazarin, towhom he returned immediately after
the incident.! About the personality of the “Grand Monarque” of later
days flattering fictions cluster thickly and luxuriantly, witness all the

general reader. In the examples here selected I have found it interesting and
instructive to verify Fournier’s numerous references : one of which however I must
leave to the reader. It concerns the account found in modern histories of an.
incident in the battle of Brenneville (1111 A.D.), between Henry I. and Louis le
Gros, when an English knight, having seized the French monarch’s bridle, called
out that he had taken the King ; upon which Louis felled him to the earth with a
blow from the royal mace, and exclaimed ‘‘ Kings are not taken even at chess.”

This remark, which is not in the Veta Ludovicd VI. by the Abbé Suger,
M. Fournier found, he tells us, by chance in Bk. i. ch. § of the Polycraticon
(meaning the Polycraticus) of John of Salisbury (ob. 1180), whose authority, though.
so nearly contemporary, he considers insufficient for an anecdote which certainly
sounds too epigrammatic to be true.

1 Bazin. Aistocre de France, &c., t. 4, 347. The King spoke, according to-
the gazette, ‘avec une gravité vraiment royale.”
236 TIE WIT OF HISTORY.

bombast written by Court poets about the “ Taking of Namur” and
the “Passage of the Rhine ”—which flattery ’tis pity Prior was not
alive to ridicule,! and for which the reader need only be referred to
Voltaire’s Louis XIV. and the numerous memoirs of the period.
But the great Louis did wvife,-some years afterwards, for the instruc-
tion of the Duke of Burgundy, the significant phrase: “The nation
in France has no corporate unity (we fait pas corps), it resides altogether
in the person of the King.” Thus, “état c’est moi” may stand as
the “‘abstract and brief chronicle ” of a (little later) time. James II.
is said by some authorities to have hazarded a similar, but less epi-
grammatic, definition of his place in the constitution—“ Don’t you
know I am above the law?” To which the Duke of Somerset aura
répondu (the French idiom is sadly wanting in our language), “‘ Your
Majesty may be, but I am not.” ?

To the same genus belongs La Pompadour’s immortal “ Aprés nous
le déluge ”—the expression either of abandoned epicureanism or of a
sense of coming judgment. And just so does the sagacious Mme. de
Staél characterise the whole day-to-day existence of the pre-Revolu-
tionary generation. The kind of happiness they enjoyed resembled
the sensations of the man falling out of the third-floor window.
“ Cela va bien pourvu que cela dure”? And a score of brilliant and
‘epoch painting” reflections of Disraeli will recur to the reader.

1 As to this see the Aémozres du Comte de Guiche conc. les Pats-bas, &c. 8vo.
Londres. 1744. The Count, who once, when drunk, called the King.a poltroon
(‘fun faux brave:’? His Majesty pretended not to hear) commanded a regiment
-of cuirassiers on the occasion, but though he and his troopers seem to have made
the passage easily, in the face of an enemy and under fire, it does not seem to have
been devoid of danger. Bossuet called it ‘‘ Ze prodige de notre siecle.” Voltaire
“* knew an old woman who had made the passage scores of times (07 horseback),
merely to defraud the custom-house.”

2 So Macaulay, ed. 1858. iii. 2 (misprint in index) citing Burnet, Hist. of his
own time: but cf appendix to Ranke, A7st. of England.

3 Fournier does not mention this. It will be found in the Consddérations (ed.
1818, iii. 386), where, it need hardly be said, numerous almost equally incisive
criticisms are to be found. Voltaire’s ‘‘ Les jeunes gens . . . . verront de belles
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 237

The exact authenticity of such sayings does not always interfere
with their practical value. If Sir Robert Walpole did not say (as
Horace rashly assures us, Walpoliana, I. go, that he did not) that
“every man has his price,” we know, if only from his son’s letters,
that he must have said something very like it! To learn the main

choses, &c. (1764), may be compared with even more distinctly prophetic words of
Lord Chesterfield.

1 It is hardly necessary to say that Walpole’s letters, in spite of their diffuseness,
and apart from their sober sense, are a perfect mine of historic wit and international
badinage, which might form the subject of many a useful examination paper. For
example :—

1. What eminent poet is described by what eminent divine as ‘‘ AZens curva tit
corpore curvo” ?

2. To what Royal Duke was it proposed to offer the freedom of ‘‘ the Worshipful
Company of Butchers” ?

3. Who was ‘‘ the new Fabius ‘ qui verézs restituit rem’”’ ?

4. Explain the following allusions, giving approximate dates—

(a) ‘* The earthquake . . . . they say, is landed at Dover.’
(2) ** Les Anglods viennent nous casser les vitres avec des guindes.”
(c) ‘* The French do not improve, like their wines, by crossing the sea.”’

5. To whom, and of what country, did what monarch observe—‘‘ AZy lord, I
wish tt were 100,000 mzles away, and that you were King of it”?

6. Which is the religion that ‘‘lets you eat nothing, but makes you swallow
everything” ?

7. Explain fully the two following extracts from Walpole and a contemporary
French historian :—

(a) “The twelve judges. . . . have made law of that of which ‘no one else

could make sense.”

(2) “Tl a livré un combat & un amiral frangais et on a trouvé quwil n’était pas
assez prés de lui”—mais lamiral francais était aussi loin de Vamiral
anglais que celui-ci était de Vautre? ‘‘Cela est incontestable,” lui
repliqua-t-on ; ‘‘ mais dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps
un amiral pour encourager les autres.”

(See Letters to Sir H. Mann, 1741-1760, 3 vols., 1833 ; and Candide, ch. xxiii.)

If the above questions were considered too easy, obscurer historical jeex @esprit
(in which few students could not be ‘‘ ploughed”) might be found in the Catalogue
of new French Books (‘ Lart de chercher les ennemis sans les trouver, par le
Maréchal de Maillebois,” &c., &c.) transcribed by Walpole for the amusement of
his “ dear child,” Sep. 11, 1742 or in the satirical advertisements appended to
238 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

outlines of history in the easily digestible form of such “ good things”
one must frequent the society of the great ones of the earth, of
generals, statesmen, cultivated “persons of quality” like the connois-
seur of Strawberry Hill, or cosmopolitan Zttévateurs like the author
of Candide.

The Prince Eugtne in what are called his memoirs } has left more
than one or two.. Thus he called England—of which he had some
practical knowledge—‘“‘the land of contradictions,” with an oppo-
sition of “ faction,” and a diplomacy of bad faith. Thus may we
see ourselves as others, and friends too, saw us some two centuries
ago. The same great general has left a still more famous pro-
fessional reflection on the House of Savoy (who have been accused
by other authorities of always conspiring with their enemies against
their allies) —“‘ La géographie les empéche @étre honnétes gens.”

The mention of geography naturally recalls a royal observation
almost as famous as “ L’état, c'est mot.”

According to Voltaire (Svécle de Louis XIV. ch 28, which chapter
with the two preceding it are devoted to anecdotes of the reign), when
the Duke of Anjou departed to take the crown of Spain, the King
observed to him, in order to mark the union which was now to pre-
vail between the two nations: “The Pyrenees are no more” (//'ya
‘plus de Pyrentes).

Voltaire, as Fournier points out, must have been acquainted with the
certain numbers of the Craftsman [‘‘Old Franklyn,” by the way, the printer
of this periodical ‘‘under Tom’s Coffee House, Covent Garden,” 3rd ed. 1727,
was afterwards a tenant of Walpole’s at Twickenham, and told him that Pulteney
never wrote in the paper—only suggested ideas. Zo Mann, Ap. 27, 1753]; or, to
go back further still, in Agrippa D’ Aubigne’s comic catalogue (Liventaire des livres
trouvés dans la Bibliotheque de MM Guillaume), written early in the seventeenth
century. See Duchat’s notes to the Memoires, &c. of D’Aubigné, 1729.

1 The well-known A/émoires du Prince Eugéne de Savoie, écrits par lui-méme
-(2de reimpression de l’éd. de Weymar, 1809, with fine portrait, 8vo, 1811), were
apparently compiled or edited by the Prince de Ligne, whose owzz Letters (published

by Mme. de Staél, Genéve, 1809) are full of entertaining gossip upon the sovereigns
and celebrities of the day—Frederick the Great, Jean Jacques, Voltaire, &c.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 239

authentic version of the story, which is contained in that very journal
of Dangeau of which he had himself published extracts.! But
Voltaire’s taste for accuracy and authenticity was arbitrary and
irregular.

Thus when the poor Abbé Velly wrote to ask him where he found
authority for his statement in the Essaz sur les mours, that the
French crusaders, after the capture of Constantinople in 1204,
‘danced with women in the sanctuary of the Church of St. Sophia”’
—a detail which would naturally strike the student of manners—the
historian naively replied, ‘‘ Nowhere. I invented it out of my own
head (c'est une espicglerie de mon imagination.”) The present case is
not so bad, but what Dangeau actually records (under date Nov. 16,
1700; the complete journal is now published) is that the Spanish
Ambassador very appositely observed that the journey (into Spain)
was an easy one now: che Pyrenees were melted —a metaphor thoroughly
Spanish in its hyperbole.

M. Arouet preferred to improve and Frenchify it, which was the
more inconsiderate since he himself tried to expunge from the in-
accurate but still useful work of President Hénault ? an epigrammatic
remark which has hardly less authority.

The clever or otherwise remarkable utterances of Royalty, to some
of which we have referred, would of course fill a book, and a very
entertaining one, by themselves. It is certain that Louis XI. (of whom

1 Londres. 8vo. 1770. Voltaire, however, remarks (on p. 178, vol. ii. of the
sumptuous edition of his history printed by P, and J. Didot, 4 vols., 1820) that
these Memoirs ‘‘ which people regard as a precious monument ” were only back-
stairs gossip, a pack of absurdities and inaccuracies.

2 See Nouvel Abrégé Chronologique de I Hist. de France, nouv. éd., revisée,
corrigée, etc. (with a copious index), 3 vols., 8vo, Rouen, 1789. This ‘‘ skeleton
history” contains an immense mass of details arranged in a lucid and readable
form. On p. 937 of vol. 3 will be found italicised the reply of Louis XIV. to
the English Ambassador’s complaints about the fortification of Mardyck. ‘‘ JZ,
PAmbassadeur, jai toujours été mattre chez mot, guelguefors chez les autres,” &c,
‘Le Président,” writes Voltaire, ‘‘m’avoua que cette anecdote était tres fausse””»—
but, as it was printed, would not withdraw it. -
240 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

M. Fournier says nothing) made many good, if not highly polished,
observations. It was he who replied to the Genoese when the
Republic offered itself to his protection: “ Vous vous donnez a mot,
et mot je vous donne & tous les diables.”

With his humorous actions we are not here concerned, and there-
fore leave the story of the “turnip” (which might be regarded as a
“chestnut ”’) for the reader to look for in Comines, and find with
others in the Convivinm Fabulosum of Erasmus. But a word may be
said here upon the historic practical joke alleged to have been perpe-
trated by Charles V. upon the Landgrave of Hesse, by the substitu-
tion of the word Lzwzges (lifelong) for Zindges (short or light) in the
official description of the imprisonment which the latter Prince was
to undergo.

When the Elector had smiled, while making his submission, on the
same occasion, Charles certainly observed ‘Good, I will teach you
to laugh” (Wel, tk zal u leeren lachgen).2 Did he, then, do so in the
manner supposed? ‘The story has always been current. We have
read an odd version of it in that curious repository of wit, the Bzgar-
rures of Tabourot, Seigneur des Accords (ed. Rouen, 12mo, 1591,
p. 46), where the author observes that the two German words
“enich” and “ ewich,’’ meant respectively “with” and “ without” /
But that is a detail. The traditional version may be found even in
Motley’s Dutch Republic, yet later authorities say that unfortunately
neither of the two similar expressions (ewéges, or einiges—Gefang-
niss) appear in the document referred to at all! How then did so
distinct a good story originate? Quien sabe? ‘ Revenons & nos
moutons’”—remembering always that “A ces moutons” is the
original fifteenth-century text.

That charming writer M. Augustin Thierry dwells in one of his
letters on the “ different manners of writing history.”” Their variety

1 Colloguzes, ed. 1664, p. 367. This chapter contains other anecdotes well worth

reading, and of some contemporary interest. Erasmus was born sixteen years
before the death of Louis XI. 2 Dyers Mod. Europe, ed. 1861. II. 50.
THE WIT OF HISTORY, 241

once so considerable—ranging from that of the genealogical annalist
who traced the Frankish descent from pious AEneas, to that of the
modern French historian who fancies that his language was the
“native tongue” of Charlemagne—is nowadays being toned down.
It is indeed curious that quite respectable writers should have gone
on, even up to the eighteenth century, repeating accounts of inci-
dents which never occurred, and stuffing their columns with
eloquent orations which were never delivered.

The “solemn quarto ” historian of the age of Hénault and Voltaire
is sometimes more trying than the early chronicler of whom we have
spoken elsewhere.

Hear Lord Orford (once more) upon this very matter. ‘I shall
like, I dare say, anything you do write; but I am not ovetjoyed at
your wading into the history of dark ages, unless you use it as a can-
vas to be embroidered with your own opinions and episodes, and com-
parisons with more recent times. That is a most entertaining kind of
writing. (Sep. 30, 1785.)

“In general,” adds the person of quality, “I have seldom wasted
time on the origin of nations, unless for an opportunity of smiling at
the gravity of the author, or at the absurdity of the manners of those
ages ; for absurdity and bravery compose most of all the anecdotes
we have of them, except the accounts of what they never did, nor
thought of doing.” There is much good sense in this. But it smacks
of irreverence to the ear of the serious modern historian. He
does not think that he confers a favour on early history by
“embroidering” thereon the ‘opinions and episodes” of the
nineteenth century !

As to fictitious discourses, and witty sayings, these are foibles
* derived from the ancient classics which accordingly received new
life at the Renaissance. Thus the historiographer of Henri Quatre
informs us in the preface to one of his volumes, how such a function-
ary ought to set about his business. His work, we read, was to be

adorned with a mosaic of good things drawn from the best Greek
R
242 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

and Latin authors. Needless to say, this artificial habit reacted upor
the history. Its heroes would soon be found doing the things best
described by Livy, illustrating the moral maxims of Sallust or
Tacitus, and uttering eloquent reflections, not because they did
make, but because with a proper regard for the entertainment of
posterity, they should have made them.

This, in fact, is one of the reasons for regret that such a large pro-
portion of our early histories are written in what was till Johnson’s.
time the language of humanity, and is still perhaps that of the
scholastic world.

For so many distinguished authors, especially in the sixteenth cen-
tury, were so carried away by the newly invented pleasure of writing
Latin, so intoxicated, in the worst cases, with the exuberance of a
Ciceronian verbosity, that style often occupied their attention to the
exclusion of fact. Hence we come to regard with suspicion and
alarm any early historian who, like Cardinal Bembo, is lauded by

1 It is a different matter when a historic personage himself takes to imitating
one or other of the heroes of antiquity. Since of all nations the French are prob-
ably the most imitative, and of all generations that of the French Revolution was.
the one most anxious to find respectable precedents for its conduct, one is hardly
surprised to find what seems a remarkable example of this tendency in the harangue
addressed by General Dumouriez to his disaffected troops at Grand-Pré :—

“* As for you, for 7 well neither call you citizens nor soldiers, nor my men (mes
enfans), you see before you this artillery, behind you this cavalry. . . . I know
that there are scoundrels among you charged to encourage you in crime ; désmiss
them yourselves, or denounce them to me. IL hold you responsible for them.”

It seems hardly possible that Dumouriez, whose mind was saturated with the
classics, and who, when not engaged in war or travel, lived, as he tells us, among
his books, and re-read Plutarch every year, should not have been thinking of the
most celebrated passage in Tacitus, if not in all Latin prose, the speech, that
is, of Germanicus to the mutinous legion—‘‘ Quod nomen huic ccetui dabo ?
Militesne appellem?-... an cives?.... discedite a contactu, et dividite
turbidos; id stabile ad pcenitentiam, id fidei vinculum erit.” See Tacitus,
Annals, i. 42; Vie de Dumourdez (1794), iii. 157. AZémoztres (1794) pref. The
three volumes of the Ve are completed by the (previously published) two volumes
of the AZémozres,
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 243

contemporaries for his classical taste. One always wishes that these
authors had written in their native language, or that like Mariana,
who first wrote his history in Latin in order to acquire a prose style,
they had had the industry to translate their own works, and thus
leave an original text in the vulgar. The idols of epigram and
antithesis (apart from other temptations) have, even in our own en-
lightened days, now and then distracted a historian from the paths
of candour and self-restraint ; and certainly the attractions of a fluent
and effective style had a far greater influence in the eighteenth
century. We all remember how Gibbon tells us that “he arrived at
Oxford with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor,
and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would have been
ashamed ” ; but the fact is that Gibbon (and certain other writers who
only resembled him in this respect) rarely arrived anywhere, even
at the simplest historical statement, with (so to speak) only one
bound, more particularly when uttering general reflections upon
dark and distant ages “couched ” in the subjunctive mood.! Even
the pungent double-barrelled wit of Macaulay irresistibly suggests
now and then to the reader’s mind that the whole class of sub-
stantives in employment must have “struck” for equal adjectival
wages, and got them. Not to consider such matters too curiously,
the inexperienced historian will do well to remember the cynical and
reticent Mr. Scrooge’s reply to the improving discourse of Marley’s
Ghost—‘ Don’t be flowery, Jacob.”

An eminent professor recently published a series of lectures which
he had delivered before a guileless university audience, in one of
which occurred the following typical passage : “‘ About this time the

1 This way of writing is closely connected with that use of the ‘‘ Broad A”
ridiculed by the Rev. Sydney Smith—‘‘ Who, O gracious Heaven !” he asks, “‘are
a Bennet, a Cyril Jackson, @ Martin Routh?” But it would perhaps be less
excusable to ask, ‘‘ Who are a Theodoric, a Jovian, @ Belisarius”*—or whatever
the names are which sound so well in certain familiar passages of what may be
called historical declamation ?

R 2
244 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

 

young Earl of , riding down the leafy lanes of , was met
and cut down by a party of Roundheads,” which, we take it,
smacks as much of orthodox English history as the paragraph re-
peated by “Alice” in Wonderland, and beginning “Edwin and
Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria.” But a truculent and
hostile reviewer, entering upon the picturesque scene, pointed out
with ill-controlled exultation that, apart from other inaccuracies, the
Earl of Shrewsbury in question (whose title was, it seems, correctly
given) being fifty-four years of age, was no longer young; that “the
lanes”—it being January—were ‘presumably not leafy”; and,
finally, that the Earl was not “met” or “cut down,” but (though
that is little matter to us in the year 1895) “shot with a musket ball
as he was endeavouring to escape.” Such is the conflict between
“old-world” romance and nineteenth-century actuality: such the
perils that environ the careless dabbler in history. Behind every
leafy hedge lurks a specialist armed to the teeth with “ original
authorities,” and ready to cut down the ill-equipped straggler.

A hundred and fifty years ago, if an author merely maintained a
dignified tone, no one ventured to make rude remarks.

It has been seen what Voltaire could do in the way of adorning
history. Paolo Giovio, a valued historian of an earlier epoch, took
an even stronger line, as Guillaume Bouchet tells us. When taxed
with fabrication, he replied that he did not care; for a hundred years
hence no one would know any better, and every one would believe
what was “couched in his history.” Giovio was right, but he did
not look quite far enough ahead.

“ Mots ” which have their origin in the corruption of the text, and
not of the author, are obviously of less significance ; and of these
Fournier provides one example, drawn from Chateaubriand, a writer
not much to be relied upon in matters of fact. In flowery language
Chateaubriand described the dark and stormy night on which Philip
of Valois, flying from the battlefield of Crécy, knocked at the gates of
the Chateau of Broye, exclaiming, “‘ Open, open ! ’Tis the Fortune

 
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 245

of France!” But he was wrong. It was only, according to what is
considered the correct text of Froissart, “the unfortunate King of
France.” We confess to a lingering hope that the former reading—
“c’est la Fortune de la France”—which we find in the Sauvage
edition of 1559 (vol. i. p. 154), may turn out to have some authority
in its favour. If a trifle obscure, it is more dramatic, like a host of
things which Cardinal Richelieu, Henry IV., Talleyrand, and other
less famous personages on certain critical occasions abstained from
saying. *

All kinds of observations, from the Epigram of the Hundred Days
—‘c’est le commencement de la fin”—down to the most trivial of
witticisms, were fathered upon Talleyrand, whose recently published
memoirs seem rather to have disappointed the public. Sometimes
the minister was surprised at his own wit. Sometimes the genuine
author tried to assert his rights, but in vain.

It would be a pedantic reflection on the title of a popular novel of
the day to repeat that there is no authority for “Je couvré tout
de ma robe rouge.” Yet the original remark appears to have been,
“Je venverse tout avec ma soutane rouge”’—a different idea. It is
to the cardinal, too, that we often hear attributed the ruthless response
to the protest, ‘‘ Monseigneur, il faut vivre” (or rather, “il faut bien
que je vive ”)—“ Je n’en vois pas la nécessité.” But, as a matter of
fact, this was said by the Comte d’Argenson to the despicable Abbé
Des Fontaines, whom he deterred by threats of prosecution from his
favourite occupation of libelling Voltaire! As to Henri Quatre, who
has been victimised enough by the sententious Hardouin de Perefixe
and others, he did not personally deal much in maxims of the copy-
book order. One of the few genuine remarks recorded of him is
that addressed to his staff at the battle of Coutras (where, as at Ivry, he
wore long plumes), and recorded by Brantéme. “ Get out of the light,”
he said, “7 want to be seen /” (ne m’offusquez pas : je veux paroistre).

1 D’Argenson, AMémozres, ed. 1825, p. 76. Fournier does not mention this.
246 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

How different is this kind of exclamation, which no one would have
dreamed of inventing, from such apocryphal vanities as that attri-
buted by Southey to Nelson @ gropos of the uniform “with four
stars” which he did of wear at Trafalgar.!

Having mentioned Trafalgar, it would be impossible not to refer to
the celebrated signal with which Nelson, when all necessary prepara-
tions had been made, “amused” the British fleet before his last and
greatest victory. There seems to be no doubt as to the fact. But in
the entertaining naval reminiscences of Rear-Admiral Hercules
Robinson 2 (who was present as a midshipman on board Blackwood’s
vessel, the Zuryalus) we read what seems a correction of the tradi-
tional account. ‘Lord Nelson’s ‘England expects,’ &c., was sublime,
but then here is the historical lie, ‘Z¢ was received throughout the fleet
with shouts of acclamation, and excited an unbounded enthusiasm.
Why, it was noted in the signal-book and in the logs, and that was all
about it ; we certainly never heard one word about it in our ship till...
our return to England.” There were other signals of less historic interest
which the author remembered well being addressed to the captains of
his own and other vessels: ‘“I—rely—upon—your—keeping—sight—
of—the—enemy,” and a “‘sagacious order” given before going into

1 See Arnold’s Lectures on Modern History, 1843, Lecture viii., which deals
largely with the subject here considered.

‘Tn honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them,” says Southey
(Life of Nelson, Bohn’s ed., 1861, p. 366). What Nelson did say was, as Arnold
had it, through Captain Smyth, from Hardy himself, that 2¢ was tvo late then
to think of changing a coat. But his language (v. fost) was often less simple.

2 Sea-Drift (with fine portrait of the author, plan of battle of Trafalgar, &c.)
by Rear-Admiral Robinson—8vo, blue cloth, Portsea, 1858—a volume of miscel-
laneous yarns and reminiscences of the greatest interest.

In the review in the Quarterly (vol. 109, p. 308) of M. Fournier’s work, entitled
“Pearls and Mock Pearls of History,” the author (Abraham Hayward) wanders
into so vast a field as to be almost bewildering. But of ‘‘ England expects,” &c.,
he merely observes, ‘‘ Doubt has been thrown upon the celebrated signal of
Nelson,” without saying where or by whom, but presumably referring to this
account published only two years before.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 247

action: ‘ Paint—the—hoops—of— your — masts—white.” The
enemy’s were black.

Admiral Robinson himself, by the way, makes some interesting
reflections upon the “ taste for orationising,” imbibed, as he thought,
from Roman history. The best speech he could remember was that
of “Old Maples” when he took the Argus in the Pelican in 1814—
“Send all hands aft! My lads, there’s the Avgus, no doubt about it ;
and now, my lads, if you don’t take the 4zgus, my lads, why then,
my lads—why then, my lads—why then, my lads—the Argus will take
you. Pipe down.” “Old Maples” was perhaps ignorant to what an
extent this theme might have been expanded by a classical orator.
Some of the bravest and most practical of men (the Admiral acutely
observes) wrote and spoke in a highly ornamented and even boastful
style. “ Wellington wrote like a log-book, but he was sai generis ;
almost all other commanders affected fine writing or simplicity.”
Admiral Watson’s “We fell in with the enemy’s fleet, burned, sunk,
and destroyed as per margin ” seemed to the author as unnatural as
Collingwood’s “ beautiful” description of the Battle of Trafalgar was,
as a source of history, incorrect and misleading. ‘ Old Cuddie” was,
in fact, more at home walking the poop of his vessel, ‘“‘a quarter of a
mile ahead of her second astern,”’ and serenely ‘munching an apple,”
before she glided into action (her first broadside killed 350 men), than
when elaborating an ex post facto theory of “that irregular battle.”
Men of action have usually rather inclined to the style of “Old
Maples” in moments of emergency, as appears from the example
given above of HenryIV. He may or may not have estimated aloud
the comparative value of Paris and a certain religious observance, but
it was the faithful and economical Sully, and not the King, who made
the reflection which should have occurred to our own James II. :1
“ Sive, sive, la couronne vaut bien une messe.”

1 In fact, the Archbishop of Rheims, brother of the minister Louvois, did speak

scornfully of the Royal exile as one who “‘lost three kingdoms for a mass.”
Voltaire, Lous XZV., ed. 1820, i. 299.
248 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

Historic sayings are difficult to classify ; but of all the décfa directly
connected with celebrated characters in history, probably none is
-more famous than the spontaneous outburst of the Hungarian nobility
when, in the great hall at Presburg (September 1741), they rallied
round the lone and heroic figure of the Empress, and, drawing their
swords, exclaimed, ‘ Moriamur p70 rege nostro’? (so we may read it
italicised in Alison and elsewhere) “ Marii Theresé.” There is a
certain piquancy in the generic license of the Latin which has
captivated thousands of readers.

It is to be noted that, for his estimate of the character of the pious
and courageous Maria Theresa, Alison cites on the same page
IVraxall’s Memoirs,: which give a graphic account of the whole
episode, on the authority of persons of the highest quality. ‘I never
saw any,” writes Sir Nathaniel (ed. 1799, vol. il. p. 295), ‘‘ who could
mention it without emotion, All asserted that the scene was the
most touching to be conceived.”

So far, so good. The Queen, previously crowned as Xing, in
evasion of the Hungarian custom which excluded females from the
throne, addressed the Diet in excellent Latin.

“Agitur de regno Hungariae, de personé nostra,” she began.... .
“ab omnibus derelicti, unice ad inclytorum statuum fidelitatem, arma, et

Hungarorum priscam virtutem confugimus.”

1 The Memoirs, that is, of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna
(1777-1779), 2 vols., 8vo, 1799: see vol. z, p. 295. These volumes, which are
of the greatest value and interest, and in particular give the most minute account
of Maria Theresa and the Austrian Court, must be carefully distinguished from
Sir N. W. Wraxall’s Historical Memoirs of my own time (1772-1784), the first
edition of which (with portrait, 2 vols., Cadell, 1815, containing the passages
afterwards suppressed, i. 205—Bindley £1 55., Strettell 41 18s.) lies before us.
This work, containing an atrocious libel on Count Woronzow (Lowndes’s Azd/z0-
grapher’s Manual says Prince Gortschakoff !) for which the author was prosecuted
and imprisoned, met with a severe and apparently well-deserved castigation from
both the Edinburgh Review (xxv. 178) and the Quarterly (xiii. 196) asa repository.
of slander; stale news, and second-hand gossip ; but contains, of course, a good
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 249

“ We all,” continues Wraxall’s informant, “as if animated by one
soul, drew our sabres, exclaiming unanimously—(what does the reader
expect ?)—‘ Vitam et sanguinem f7o mayestate vestré.’” There seems
no reason to discredit this account. A German critic (cited in Dyer’s
Modern Europe) questions the sword-drawing, and seems to prove
that the romantic details represent a confused account of several
different scenes.

Such an inaccuracy in the account of a notorious episode in the
last century leaves us little room for confidence as to the most cele-
brated dramatic utterances of the Middle Ages. Two or three
examples of these—to dismiss specimens which have little historical
interest—are worth discussing. If Edward III., when landing on the
coast of France, is related to have made much the same observation
as both Julius Cesar and William the Conqueror did of Great
Britain, this need not rouse much suspicion ; for like situations tend
to produce like sayings and doings.1 Nor perhaps is the inquiry of
much importance whether Jacques Molay, the Grand Master of the
Templars, when burning at the stake in 1314, did or did not utter
the prophecy often attributed to him. ‘‘I have read,” says Mézeray,
in his ponderous abridgment of the History of France, “that the
Grand Master, having only his tongue free, and half stifled with smoke,
cried aloud,‘ Clement, cruel and unrighteous butcher, I challenge thee
to appear in forty days before the Judge of all.’”

Neither the chronicler of St. Denis, nor Villani, who describes the
execution in detail,? say a word of any such challenge. But lately a

many anecdotes which are worth reading. A third series, the commoner, Post-
humous Memoirs, 3 vols., appeared in 1836.

1 It is more amusing to learn, even at third-hand, that William of Orange when
he landed, began a popular harangue (in which it is hardly conceivable he can have
proceeded much further) with the suggestive sentence: ‘‘ We have come for your
good, for all your goods.” Spence’s Anecdotes, ed. 1820, p. 337. Spence had this
from Nathaniel Hooke, who was born in 1690.

2 Giovanni Villani (a contemporary, for he only died in 1348) merely record
Molay’s exclamation that he deserved death for having been lured into a con-
250 THE WIT OF HISTORY;

rhymed chronicle, presumably Mézeray’s only authority, has been
unearthed which gives the story in detail.

The coincidence that both King and Pope died shortly after the
‘Grand Master was exactly one of those facts strongly influencing
popular imagination which a romancist was bound to deal with. A
metrical chronicle, if we recollect right, was a principal ‘“ authority ”
involved in the controversy which raged during the past year in the
pages of a contemporary review, and indeed seems to be not yet
extinct, as to whether our Saxon ancestors at ‘“‘ Senlac” fought behind
a palisade or in the open. The former hypothesis, which perhaps
‘does not seriously reflect upon the national courage, seemed to be
gaining the day, but to base such a fact upon a mere romance of the
time would be little better than basing a fact in modern politics upon
one of Disraeli’s novels ; not that the rhymed chronicle was not often
more prosaic and less imaginative than the dullest modern prose.
But while it is a common case that, as M. Fournier quotes from
Beaumarchais, ‘‘anciens petits mensonges assez mal plantés ont
produit de grosses, grosses vérités,”' all persons acquainted with the
“ Twins” and ‘‘ Nova Scotia Sheep” myth evolved in the School for
Scandal understand how a chance word or suggestion sometimes sets
a complete story going. Thus, to take an example, stumbled on at
haphazard, in Afurray’s Guide is an exciting note concerning the villa
of Vedius Pollio, near Naples, and the huge lamprey kept in his fish-
pond and “‘fed upon the flesh of disobedient slaves.” This should make
the modern reader’s flesh creep. The story will be found, where we
should expect to find such stories, in Guyon’s Diverses Legons, Lyon,
8vo, 1610; and further back still, in Pietro Crinito’s treatise De honestd
disciplind (i.e., de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis), on p. 23 of the
fine edition printed by Nicolas de Barra in 1518. The “original
authority ” is apparently the anecdote given by Seneca in the dialogue
fession by the flattering artifices of the Pope and the King—Philip the Fair.
Storia, vili. 92.

1 Mariage de Figaro, iv. 1.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 251

De fré, where, by the way, a fund of entertainment is to be found.
The Emperor Augustus was one day dining with Pollio, and a slave
-happened to dveak a glass, upon which Pollio in a rage conceived the
idea of ordering him to be thrown into the fishpond. The slave,
however, threw himself at the feet of Augustus, begging to be allowed
to die any death—“ modo ne esca fieret”—only not to be used as live
bait. The Emperor, “struck by the novelty of such a punishment,”
ordered every glass in the house to be broken, and the fishpond to be
filled up. And that was all.

But if insignificant and doubtful materials have often been
evolved into “ grosses, grosses vérités,” on the other hand, a genuine
fact or dictum once popularised runs considerable risk, if its original
source be lost, of sharing the fate of the fictions with which it has
become associated. It rather appears that the celebrated and touch-
ing scene of Philip Augustus before the Battle of Bouvines (1214)
offering to give up his royal authority to any one whom the army
might consider more worthy of it should be assigned to this class.
Thierry devoted a whole chapter to the demolition of the theatrical
narratives of Anquetil and the Abbé Velly, according to which the
monarch laid his crown upon the altar, saying, “Zi/e est au plus
digne,” and the host responded with acclamations of “ Vive Philippe,
vive le roi Auguste.” Thierry quotes at length! the account (of the
preparation for the battle) given by the chaplain, Gulielmus Armoricus
who stood “just behind the King and close by him”; and yet says
not a word of the matter, which, in any case, is curious. But appar-
ently Thierry had not seen the then recently published Chronicle of
Rheims,? containing an impressive and far more credible description

1 Lettres sur Hist. de France, L.i., 7th ed., 1842; and Duruy, Hist. de Fr.
It must be remembered, of course, that the ‘‘ Hellenically” emotional impulse
which induces a native historian to prefer the most self-conscious and artificial
version of such an utterance, also operated upon the characters in his history.
For a curious and pathetic expression of “French” feeling (upon the Franco-

Prussian War), see the preface to the work last cited (ed. 1873).
2 La Chronique de Rains. Publiée d’aprés le MS. unique de la Bibliotheque
252 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

of the scene—a scene in itself, as Duruy thinks, deeply significant of
the danger in which the French King and his army were placed—but
which was embellished by later hands into an object of historic
suspicion.

But there is another and more celebrated mediaeval utterance
which, embodying as it does the expression of a fanaticism and in-
tolerance hardly intelligible at the present day, has a permanent
historical interest. In our own civilised age, at a meeting of the
Archzeological Society of Béziers (in 1844), a certain M. Henri Julia
was reading a paper upon the sack of that city at the outset of the
crusade against the Albigeois (July 1209), and he had just quoted
the atrocious words attributed to the papal legate Milo (words, by
the way, which read perhaps better in English than in French), “ Kill
kill them all: God will know His own /” when a young priest rose
in the audience and cried out, “That is false. It has been dis-
proved”; and a ‘‘scene” ensued, of which it need merely be said
that the chairman does not seem to have supported the lecturer.!

The interruption, if not an unnatural one, was not exactly correct.
The best historians of our day repeat the allegation. “Then,” says
Dean Milman, describing the episode, ‘was uttered the frightful
command, ‘Slay them all. God will know His own.’” And
Sismondi writes : ‘““It was Arnold, abbot of the Cistercians, who, when

Roi, par Louis Paris, 8vo, 1837. See p. 148. ‘Quant li baron l’oirent ensi
parler, si comencerent & plorer de pitié et disent : ‘ Sire, pour Dieu merchi. Nous
ne volons roi se vous non.’”” The author of this interesting chronicle has recorded
a favourite oath of Philippe-Auguste which is, says the learned editor, men-
tioned nowhere else—‘‘ Par la lance Saint-Jague.”’ (As to other royal oaths,
of. Brantéme, ed. 1740, vi. 277.) Here also will be found (ch. viii.) the original
and full account of Blondel’s discovery and rescue of Richard Coeur de Lion,
which was previously known only from Claude Fauchet’s Recueil de [origine de
la langue et Poésie Frangaise, 4to, 1581, ‘‘ ouvrages estimé et peu commun.”
Fauchet, the interest of whose book is due in part to his having had access (it is
said) to various MSS. now lost, quotes a MS. version of the fifteenth century, in
his possession, apparently copied from the above.
1 Fournier, p. 62
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 253

asked how heretics should be distinguished from Catholics, replied,
* Kill them all. God will know those that belong to Him.’”!

The remark, attributed to one person or the other, is recorded by
several contemporary authorities. But, on the other hand, it is not
mentioned by those whose authority would, prima facie, be the best,
that is the native chroniclers of the country, nor by Pierre de Vaux
Cernay,? ¢ke authority par excellence, an eye-witness of the whole
transaction, who would, it is urged, have been proud to record it.
This to readers acquainted with the barbarous invective and blood-
thirsty sarcasms of that orthodox writer will not seem at all incredible ;
but after all he might not have heard the words, and the inhabitants
of the doomed city certainly would not have heard them if they were
uttered defore the attack. Therefore there remains little reason for
doubt that one or other of the crusading leaders did utter a remark
which, if not devoid of originality and wit, would at least have come
more suitably from the mouth of a layman.

The subject of persecution naturally recalls another historical
question which, except in so far as any striking fact supplies histor-
jans with material for a sensational statement, seems hardly to form
part of M. Fournier’s subject-matter.

1 Sismondi, Literature of Southern Europe, i. ch. 6. Milman’s Latin Christc-
anity, ed, 1883, i. 429.

2 Historia Albigensium et sacri belli in eos anno 1209 suscepti, duce et principe
Simone & Monteforte, &c., 8vo, Trecis, 1615, ch. xv. This first edition of a work
not more remarkable for the hideous tragedies it describes, than for the fanatical
atrocity of the author’s frame of mind, one has some difficulty in procuring. A
French translation was published in 1569. And the short chronicle entitled Preclara
Francorum Facinora ... . contra orthodoxe fidet hostes, sm. 8vo, n.d. (Panzer,
Ann. Typ. iv. 132, 524) is a distinctly rare book. The anonymous history
in Provencal prose (Hist. des Guerres des Albigeots, etc., avec introduction par
un indigne, Thoulouse, 1863—some curious specimens of provincial animosity
are preserved in the preface), which is probably a fourteenth-century reproduction
of a contemporary chronicle (as Sismondi, who quotes the awful description of the
sack of the city as a specimen of thirteenth-century prose, seems not to have
noticed), certainly seems to assert (p. 6) that ‘‘Senhor Milo ” died of = ‘‘ certana
malaudia” before the Crusaders reached Béziers.
254 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

It is said, to return to that age of excitement the sixteenth cen-
tury, that Charles IX., whether he did or did not write the poem
assigned to him, upon the occasion of the massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew’s Day, “fired upon the flying Huguenots with an arquebus
~-from the window of his apartment in the Louvre.”

Where should we expect to find the origin of such a story?
Scarcely in the life of that pious monarch by his chaplain Antoine
Sorbin, misnamed de Saincte Foy,’ but of course in the memoirs of
Brantéme.

And there it will duly be found. Charles IX., Brantéme tells us,
when once his consent to the proposed massacre had been obtained,
took up the idea with enthusiasm, ‘so much so that whilst the game
was going on at break of day, the King, seeing some Huguenots who
were running about and trying to escape, took a great arquebus that
he used in hunting, and discharged it right at them, but to no purpose.
The arquebus would not carry so far.” This last touch has certainly
the air of veracity. The objections of various French critics are
based upon an architectural argument too long to be here rehearsed.
But if that part of the Louvre to which popular tradition assigned the
act, when, in 1793, an inscription was erected to commemorate the
royal infamy, did not exist in 1572, this may surely mean only that pop-
ular tradition was wrong, as it constantly is. The particular room or
window is hardly the essence of the story, as it is, for example, of the
legend that Henry III. died from the poisoned dagger of Jacques
Clement in the very apartment and on the very day in and on which
he had eighteen years before? taken part in the council which

1 Abrégé de la vie, mets, et vertus dit Roy tres Chrestien et debonnaire Charles
LX., vrayement piteux (sic), propugnateur dela Foy Catholique et amateur de bons
esprits, a Lyon, chez Ben. Rigaud, 1574. But this (rave) volume—my copy wants
part of the preface—contains many curious anecdotes of the time, and details of
the King’s private life. See also Brantéme, ed. 1740, vol. ix. 427. Alémoires de
? Estat de France, etc., 3 vols., 1578, i. 294. This latter is, I believe, the most
copious and circumstantial account of the massacre in existence.

2 See a note of L’Ecluse’s to Sully’s Memoirs, vol. i. and p. 180 ante.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 25s

planned the massacre. And the central fact—the shooting—is sup-
ported by a good deal of contemporary evidence. L’Estoile, whom
Fournier does not mention, refers to the King, in his journal, as
“potting” (géboyant) at the Calvinist fugitives. The A¢émoires de
“Estat de France (mentioned above), which describe the Queen-
Mother’s anxiety lest the King should change his mind, and the
accidental precipitation of the massacre, mention the report that the
King, seeing his guards in the street shooting, cried out, “Let us
have a shot, they are running away”; and fired an arquebus which
he used in hunting. They also state that Charles, looking out of
a window, and struck by the fineness of the Sunday and Monday,
remarked, presumably a little later, that the “weather seemed to be
rejoicing at the destruction of the Huguenots.’ (i. 318.) De Thou
speaks of a gun or cannon being fired “ by order of the King, as it
is believed,” which may have had something to do with the story.
In fine, Voltaire, in a note to the second edition (1724) of the tire-
some epic poem afterwards called the Henriade, says that ever so
many people had heard the story from the Marquis de Tessé, who
died in 1725 at the age of seventy-five, and who had it from the very
man who, as a boy, loaded the arquebus. What more could we ask
but the arquebus itself? Seriously, the substance of the story
required a good deal of invention.

It is interesting to note that the President Hénault, who, as we
have seen, deliberately recorded a don mot’ of the Grand Monarque
for which he knew there was no authority at all, at first admitted this.
anecdote of Charles IX. to his abridgment, qualified by a ‘“ dit-on,”
and finally excluded it altogether.

A discussion accidentally started the other day upon a far more
ancient subject-matter reminds one that there may be sayings in
themselves insignificant, or merely epigrammatic, which have become
traditionally famous through the consequences that followed them.

Among the isolated utterances which history has found cause to
remember, hardly any can be more celebrated than that immortalised.
256 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

by Dante as the origin of the Guelf and Ghibellin factions in Italy
—“ capo ha cosa fatta,” or, as it runs in prose, “ cosa fatta, capo ha.”

This is the reflection attributed to Mosca de’ Lamberti on the occa-
sion of the consultation held by the Amidei and their friends as to
how they should revenge themselves upon Messer Buondelmonte de’
Buondelmonti for the insult put upon their family by his contempt-
uous breach of promise of marriage. It is worth while to refer to the
description of the incident, which occurred in the year 1215, given
by Giovanni Villani in his chronicle, because a question was recently
raised, or revived, as to the precise meaning of the remark, which
soon passed into a now extinct proverb.

To the ordinary reader the sense in which Lamberti must have
used the phrase will seem inevitably determined by the circumstances
under which he spoke. It was a question whether the insulter of the
family should be wounded or merely beaten (0 ai ferirlo, 0 dt batterlo di
man vuote), when Mosca de’ Lamberti, breaking in on the discussion,
exclaimed, “cosa fatta capo ha”; ‘ cioé” (as the chronicler explains)
“ che fosse morto” —“e cosi fu fatto”: and then follow the details of
the assassination.

What could have been the meaning of such advice, unless it were
to reject both the suggested alternatives in favour of more drastic
measures which would finish with the matter once for all? What else
could be the point of the exclamation prefixed by Dante to the “ill-
omened word ” in the lines.,

‘* Ricorderati anche del Mosca
Che dissi, asso! capo ha cosa fatta,
Che fu ’] mal seme per la gente Tosca” ?

It has been suggested that (since “cago” doubtless means a
beginning, as well as a “head and crown”) the speaker must
have meant, not that “(a thing doze is done with, completed,” but
that “‘a thing done paves the way for future action” (of some
quite undefined nature). Could there be a more pointless, a less
emphatic argument in favour of a decided course of action? There -
et

gc eects

THE WIT OF HISTORY. 257

is force in comparing an action “well begun” to one which is
“half done”; but to compare an act completely executed “ cosa fatta”
to the beginning of something else unknown and indifferent, is surely
neither witty nor forcible. The speaker in 1215 was not thinking of
the long factions destined to rage between Guelf and Ghibellin in the
unknown future, but of settling fza//y an account in the already past.
It is argued that the question was whether o action at all should be
taken, or some, cosa “ fatta.” But Villani’s words show that this
was precisely zo¢ the point in dispute, but whether half measures of
some kind would or would not suffice, whereupon Mosca gave his
vote for what all the early historians understood to mean “la mort
sans phrase.” !

And this latter dictum, which brings us back quite inevitably
and unintentionally to M. Fournier and French history, this
“mala parola” attributed to the Abbé Sityes, is to be added to
the vast catalogue of effective sayings which yet remain unsaid ;
except, that is, at second-hand. The Abbé Sityes did indeed vote
for the execution of Louis XVI., but merely, as he asserted, with
the words, “Za mort.” The rest of the phrase belonged, he thought,
to the “indirect oration” of some reporter, who gave a more

1 See Atheneum, April 20, 1895 (reviewing a recent work on Dante) ; /u/erno,
xxviii. 107 ; Giovanni Villani Storia, v. 38; and Ricordano Malespini (the almost
contemporary authority whom Villani here, as often elsewhere, follows almost
verbatim), ch. 104 (ed. 1598, p. 90). Volpi’s invaluable Zzdzcz dt Dante—Comino,
Padua, 1727 (revised ed. Venice, 1819)—and the Raccolta di Proverbi Toscani of
Giuseppe Giusti (the famous satirist), Florence, 1853.

The story as given by Bandello (vol. i. novel 2: I quote the edition of 1566,
which is presumably reliable in this matter) is that at the family conclave, after
certain proposals of violence and bloodshed had been put forward ‘‘vi furono
alcuni che discorrendo i mali che ne potevano seguire, non volevano che tanta a
furia fosse da correre, ma da pensarvi piu maturamente, Era tra i congregati il
Mosca Lamberti, huomo audacissimo e pronto di mano il quale disse che chi
pensava diversi partiti, nessuno ne pigliava : e soggiunse quella volgata sentenza,”
&c. It is dangerous to attack a reviewer in his native fastnesses, but what ground

is there for saying that ‘‘ comes to a head” (a special and medical English idiom)
is an impartial translation of ‘‘ capo ha”?
258 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

picturesque turn, as Macaulay sometimes did to the remarks brought
on to his pages in inverted commas, to the original text.

We are here clearly declining from the historical to the purely per:
sonal “ historic” saying. Among these none is more familiar than the
epigrammatic “All is lost but honour” (Tout est perdu fors ’'honneur)
of the most light-hearted of French monarchs. But most people are
now aware that Francis I. appended to the famous phrase (in his
original letter, which has long since become public property) the
words, “and my life, which is safe,” an addition at once natural in a
filial epistle, and characteristic of the author, to whom, as is known
from subsequent events, honour was by no means everything.

Nor need we here rehearse examples of the common “ supercherie
littéraire” such as that of M. Querlon (editor, by the way, of Mon-
taigne’s travels in Italy), who composed for an anthology of 1765, and
the mere fun of the thing, the “touching lines” by Mary Queen of
Scots, reprinted in certain conventional histories. Of such fictions
might it not often be said—

«Tl n’y a dans de telles affaires que le premier pas qui cofite,”

an adage, by the way, which might seem as well entitled to
examination as many of those in M. Fournier’s work,! though he does
not mention it. The story (concerning the progress of the martyred

1 Fournier confines himself to French history. It is hardly necessary to say
that a chapter (of less general interest) might have been added upon the peculiar
wit of Italy, of the ‘‘ Pasquino.and Marforio” who, as Beckford said, ‘take the
place of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius.” On this matter the reader might
consult the interesting preface to Giuseppe Belli’s Duecento Sonetti in dialetto
Romanesco, ed. L. Morandi, Florence, 1870. Most of the satirical jests there recorded
concern local and papal abuses, an inexhaustible subject, but not all. At the time
of the French invasion, when Napoleon was busily transporting so many priceless
Italian MSS. and works of art to Paris, Marforio inquires of his colleague,
“* Pasquino, che tempo fa?” E quello rispondeva ‘‘ Uh! fa un tempo da ladri!”
and a:few days later ‘‘ Pasquino, e vero che i Francesi son tutti ladri?” ** Tutti,
no: ma dona-parte.”

See also Pasguino e Marforio (containing original Latin and Italian texts of the
most famous pasquinades), 8vo, 1861, rare (by M. Mary Lafon), reprinted 1877.
THE WIT OF HISTORY. 259

St. Denis carrying his head in his hands) is quoted by Gibbon, and
will be found in the correspondence of his friend Mme. Du Deffand.?

But a perfect example—and this shall be the last—of the evolution
of a classical 60 mot is supplied by that comparison of Racine and
coffee which many readers expect to find in the immortal letters of
Mme. de Sévigné. It was made in three stages 2—

(1) Madame wrote in 1672: “Racine writes comedies for La
Champmeslé (the popular actress), zot for the generations to come,”
and suggests that he has not much in him, ending with a cheer for
“our old friend Corneille.” And four years later she observes to the
unsympathetic daughter: “So you have quite given up coffee? So
has Mlle. de Méri.”

(2) Eighty years later Voltaire (what should we do without Vol-
taire ?) ran the two phrases together, with a slight variation : ‘“ Mme.
de Sévigné always held that Racine will not go far: she judged of
him as she did of coffee, of which she used to say people would soon
get tired.”

(3) Upon this preparation of materials enter La Harpe, conven-
tional dramatist and popular lecturer on literature, who proceeds to
coin an immortal phrase—at least it is scarcely dead yet—“ Racine
passera comme le cafe.”

But we must not wander further into the region of merely social
and literary “ good things.”

Alas! that the slightest research in this as in other departments.
should so often tend to convince one that the really good thing is too
good to be genuine, or that, if not corrupted, it has at least been
borrowed by the traditional or soz-disant author. It was ever thus.
with all authors, little or great, and at all periods of which we know
anything. No need to tell the student of any modern edition of

1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. 1872, v. 33. Deffand, Corres--
pondance inédite, Colburn, 1810, L. xxiii.

2 See the Motice sur Mme. de Sévigné prefixed to the edition of her Letters.
12 vols., 1818 (vol. i. p. 132).
260 THE WIT OF HISTORY.

Julius Casar, for example, how little Shakespeare was to be trusted
to poach only incidents or “materials” from the preserves of a
North’s Amyot’s Plutarch and the like. And every schoolboy (at
least every schoolboy who has read Lalanne’s Curiosités Littéraires)
knows that the finest “ flash of genius” in Molitre—

“* Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galére ?””—

is a barefaced crib from Cyrano de Bergerac.! In these inquiries
authenticity, like historic accuracy in the other, soon vanishes from our
straining gaze. To appropriate successfully the “good things” of
another man, there is but one successful principle, and that is—what
an early scholar is suspected of having done with a last treatise of
Cicero—to destroy the original. Hence the true maxim for the
pirates of historic wit—

“ Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.”

 

1 Just as the paradox about ‘‘ talking prose without knowing it” now eternally
associated with the ‘‘ Bourgeois gentil-homme,” belongs in fact to the Comte de
Soissons. v. Lettres de Sévigné (June 12, 1686).

i A
INDEX.
INDEX.

A.

<*A,” The Broad, Rev. Sydney Smith
on the use of, 243 7.

Adder, how it ‘‘stoppeth its ears,” 79 7.

Alexander VI. (Pope), death of, 199,
222

Alexander and the Pirate, story of, 79

Alexander, burial of, 109

Alexander, histories and romances of,
85, 106 and sg. ; their popularity, 89

Alfonsus, Petrus, his Dzscipiina Clert-
calis, 99 and Chap. iii. (2) passim.

Amadis de Gaule, 3 ; woodcut from, 39

Anastasius, Lives of the Popes, colour
of, 14

Andreini’s Adamo, 10

Angouléme, Charles de Valois Duc de,
Mémoires trés-particuliers, 180

Annales Francorum Pithet, 165 n.

Apparition of Jean le Meung, 16 n.

Appian, first edition of, 8

“© Aprés nous le déluge,” 236

Arabian Nights (the), history of, 90;
Galland’s translation of, 91

Aretino, Leonardo, Hzstory of his own
Times, 200 2.

Aretino, P., 22; attack of Perionius
upon, 2d.

Ariosto, Ludovico, Letters of, 222

Aristotle, 103 and sg. ; Lay of, 105

\

Armagnacs and De Foix, quarrels of,

5

Arnaut, P., murder of, by Count de
Foix, 51

aun, Matthew, J/txed Essays, cited,
187 72.

Ascham, Roger, Lefters of, cited, 211 2.

Asser, Life of K. Alfred, 169

Astorga, J. L. S. de, Poema de Alex-
andro, 108

Atomic theory of book-collecting, 31

Auctions of 18th century, 21

** Authorities” of history, different
attitudes towards, 151 and sg.

** Auxilium egentium,” the, 112

B.

Bavuze, Estienne, autograph of, 18,
and see Pp. 30 2.
Barlaam and Josaphat, story ot, 85, 88
Baron de Feneste (le), 179 2.
Bartholinus,T., Azc¢zguztates Danica, 94
Bartholomew, the pirate, 131
Bassompierre, memoirs of, cited, 190
Bastille, literary influence of the, 193
Battle, ideal, of 14th century, 67 2.
Bayle, Lettres chotsies, cited, 43, 179,
194; work on tolerance, 194 7.

Note.—The names or titles of books (only) are in italics.
264

Beaumarchais, JL’ Affaire Gazmann,
196; Vie privée, &c., de, tb. n.

Belli, Gius. , Someted (1870), cited, 258 7.

Bembo, Historie Veneta, 9

Benivieni’s Canzona d’un piagnone,

7 2.

Benjamin of Tudela, Zténxerarium of,
cited, 93

Bentivoglio, works of, published by the
Elzevirs, 180 x.

Berni, Francesco, fate of, 223

Beza, Letters of, 157

Lidpai, Fables of, 86, 99; genealogy
of, 87 2.

Bindings, taste for, 16;
wb. n.

Bird and man, fable of, 113

Blondel and Richard Cceur-de-Lion,
story of, 252

Boethius, Plantin, edition of, 7

Bolingbroke, Motes on History, cited,
156 ;

Book-borrowing, laws of, 32

Book-plate, a remarkable, 31

Books, prices of; modern novels, 14;
early dramas, 18-19

Bracciolini, Poggio, Héstoria Floren-
tina, cited, 71 2.

Brandebourg, Mémoires de, 200 1.

Brantéme, Anecdote of Charles IX.,
254; of Henri Quatre, 245

Brasiliano, 132

Browne’s Religio Medicz, cited, 24

Bruno, Giordano, Spaccio della bestia,
26

Bruto, G. M., History of Florence, 28

‘Bulls, wild, used by Spaniards in war,
142 and xote

Burchard, J., Déary of, 199 2.

Burnet’s History of his own Times, 34

Byron, expensive volume of, 14

medieval,

c.

Calilah va Dimna, 87, 99

Cambridge, printing at, in 16th century,
13

Camden and de Thou, relations of, 30

INDEX

Caméoens, Lustadas, Didot edition of,
202 7.

Campanella, poems of, 25

Catalogues, comic and satirical, 237-8 2.

Catholicon of Balbi, cited, 100

Ceccheregli’s Attionz e sentensze di Aless-
andro Medict, 225

Cecilius, de Mortibus persecutorum,
165

Cellini, Benvenuto, AZemozrs of, 198-9

Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (ed. Le Roux
de Lincy), 78

Chapuy, Hist. de Navarre, 63 2.

Charles IT., anecdote concerning, 233

Charles V., his visit to Rome, 215, 217
(and Chap. VI. fasstm); relations
with Pope Paul III., 211, 215, 223,
225; alleged practical joke on the
Landgrave of Hesse, 240

Charles IX. and the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew’s Eve, 254

Chasles, Philaréte, Paradoxe contre
Ciceron, 161

Chastillon, Gautier de, his Alexan-
drets, 108

Chinese comedy, described by Acosta,

120

Choisy, Abbé, 192 ; Memoztrs of, 193

Cicero, letters of, 161-2

Classics, early editions of, 8, 38

Clenartt Epistole, Plantin ed. of, 7

Cletus, Pope, scandal concerning, 30

Coaa’s Memorial, cited, 129 n.

Colliber’s Critical History of English
Sea Affairs, 135, 147

Columbus, Expedition to the West
Indies, 125 and sg.

Comus of Dupuy, 10

“*Cosa fatta capo ha,” history and
meaning of, 256-7 ; record of, by G.
Villani and Malespini and Bandello,
257 2.

Courtils de Sandras, spurious memoirs
by, 196

Crebillon, Cl. -P., 22

Crinitro, Pietro, anecdote recorded by,
250

Cromwell, Henry, on the peopling of
Jamaica with Irish, 129 7.

Cymbalum mundi, 24,
INDEX, 265

D.

Dante, Epistole di (1842), 165 2.

D’Argenson, Mémozres cited, 193, 245

D  Artagnan, Mémoires de, 193 7.

Darwin, Charles, treatment ‘of bulky
volumes by, 31

D’Aubigné, Th. Agrippa, Histoire
secrete, &c., 178 and sg., 238 2.

D’Avallon, Vie privée &c., de Beau-
marchats, 196 n.

Davis, J., pirate, 135

De Cayet, Palma V., Chronologies of,
173 2. (3)

De Clos, Bernard, remark on Ecclesias-
tical councils, 218

D’Espaigne, practical joke of, described
by Froissart, 56

D’Estissac, Geoffrey, 207, 210, 220,
221

De Laporte, AZemoirs of, 191

Delibatio historia Africane, 164

De ant Memoirs of Petrarch, 73,

I

De Stael, Mme., ‘“‘bon mot” of, on
the pre-Revolutionary age, 236

De Thou, 34 (and see Camden)

Devices, &c. of printers: Bevilacqua,
176; Elzevir, 180; Estienne, Ant.,
40; Gryphius, Ant. and Seb., 7;
Gryphius, Sebastian, 221 ; Morel, G.,
36; Oporinus, 8 ; Plantin, 7 ; Richer,
174; de Sabio, 17, 18; de Tournes,
J., 50; Viotto Seth, 29

Directorium vite humana, 76, 85,
87 x., 88

Divorce Satirique (le), 175

Divortio Celeste (il) of Ferrante Pal-
lavicino, 27

Dog, weeping, Apologue of the, 111

Dogs, wild, used by Spaniards in W.
Indies, 134

Doria, Andrea, 209 ; visits Rome, 218

Du Bellay, Jean, Cardinal, patron of
Rabelais, 208

Du Guesclin, chronicle of, 72, 171

Dumouriez, classical oration of, 242 7.

Duvernet, T. J. L2fe of Voltatre, 195

Dutch Press, in 17th century, impor-
tance of, 193

Dyalogus creaturarum

(1480), 84;
woodcut from, 99

E.

-Earwe’s World display’d, 187

Early printed books, 5, 6, &c. ; works
of mythology, 84-5

Lddas, mythological, 94

Editions, early, delusive attractions of,

37

Henbanh biography of Charlemagne,
16

Elzevir, works published by the, 180 z.,

190

English trade, &c., Papal Bull affect-
ing, 219

** Enoch,” The Book of, 99

LEpigrammata et FPoematia (12m0,
1590), 36

Epoch-making books, 39, 40

Ercilla y Zufiiga, Avaucana, 202

Estienne, Henry, tracts of, 43-4

Eugene, Prince, remark on the House
of Savoy, 238

Evelyn, John, Life of Mrs. Godolphin,
189 2.

‘*Ex-Librist,” singular conduct of an,
31

Exquemelin’s History of the Buccaneers
of America, 144 2. ; plate from, 122

F.

Fabliaux, general impropriety of, 79

Fabroni, Lettere di uomini tllustrit,
200 7.

Fairfax, Lord, Short Memorials of, 185

Fauchet’s Origines de la langue
Francaise &¢., 252

Ferrara, Duke of, difference with Pope
Paul ITI., 225

Feudal times, ferocity of, 67, 71 & sg.

Fiction (see Ch. III.) ; Italian, 82;
medizeval works of, 84

Fictitious discourses, &c., in History,
classical origin of, 241, 247

First editions of mod. novels, 14 and sg.;
of Shakspearian plays, 18, 19
266 INDEX.

Fléchier’s Mem. sur les grands jours
a’ Auvergne, 200 n.

Foix, Gaston Pheebus, Count de, 49,
and Ch. II. assem; his work on
Hunting, 53-4

Forgaill, Dallan,
Colomb, 95 7.

Fouilloux, J. de, his Venerde, 54

Fournier (Ed.), L’esprit dans Phistoire,
234 2. (and Ch. VII. Zassim)

Fournier, Fr. J., Dzctéonnaire de
Bibliographie, 9 n.

Fox and wolf, Fable of, 110

Franco, Nicolo, 22, 28

Frederick the Great, historical works
of, 200

French chroniclers, 171; memoir
writers, 173 (and see Ch. V. passim) ;
tracts, 41, 44, 46

Froissart (see Ch. II. passim), his ac-
count of the Comte de Foix, 53 and
sq.3 his greyhounds, 54; edition of
his chronicles printed by Jan de
Tournes, 49, 50

Fugger, J. J., library of, 211 2.5 a
volume presented by, 2d. 7.

Ele on St.
gy ¥

G.

ae T., Héstorie Poetice Scriptores,

I

Galland’s Arabian Nights, 92; Contes
Indiennes, &¢., 933; Orientaliana,
93, 113

Gascons (in 14th century), allies of
English, 69

Gellius, Aulus, 163

Gesta Det per Francos (fol. 1614), usual
colour of, 14

Gesta Romanorumt, 84, 116

Gibbon (on the Fables of Bidpai),
cited, 87 7.

Giovio, Paolo, Bruto’s strictures upon,
29; loss and recovery of the MSS,
of his history, 34; his disregard of
veracity, 244

Giraldus, Cambrensis, first edition of
his /tinerary, 83 2.

Golden Legend, The, 84 n.

Gondomar, animosity of, against
Raleigh, 146

Gower’s Confessio Amantis, 78, 99

Gray’s Descent of Odin, &¢., 94.

Gregory XI. (Pope) intervenes in the
De Foix tragedy, 65

Guicciardini, Francesco, history of, 28

Guicciardini, | Ludovico, _ historical

works of, 176

‘Guiche, Comte de, Memozrs of, 236

Guise, Henri, Duc de, AZemozrs of, 181
Guyon, Déverses Lecons, cited, 250

H.

HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS, J. O., used to
“pluck” his books, 31

Hamilton, Memoirs of the Comte de
Gramont, 189

Hénault, President, <Adrdgé Chrono
logique, 239 2.

Henry III. (of France), collection of
tracts concerning, 175, 180

Henry IV., observation of, at battle of
Coutras, 245

Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury, :auto-
biography of, 181

Herodotus, note on, 160

Historical pamphlets, ‘“‘recueil fac-
tice” of, 178 2.

History, different manners of writing,
240; dangers of a classical style,
241-2; of the ‘flowery ”’ or epigram-
matic, 243-4

Hole, Rich., Remarks on the Voyages
of Sinbad, &¢., 92 #., 97

Hooft’s history, Lord Hardwicke’s re-
mark on, I2

Hotman, Fr., tracts of, 43; de Furori-
bus Gallicis, 44

Howell, J., Zpistole Ho-cliane, cited,
146-7 7.

Hume’s History of his own Life, cited,

184 2.
Hutchinson (Col.), Life of, 187
I.

Lt faut vivre, genuine authorship of,

245
INDEX,

Lmpostors, The Three, 24

India, early epic poetry of, 96

Indices of 16th century books, curious
nature of, 176

Interest (in Books, g.v.), contemporary,
36 and sg.; precedent, 10, 11;
local, 12

‘*Tntrigue,” specimen of an, 225

Irishman, inquisitive, story of the, 94

Isidore, St., Ztymologia of, 79 x.

j.

JACOBUS DE VITRIACO, 106

Jamaica, condition of, in 17th century,
129; exportation of Irish to, 2, ;
emigration of Scotch to, 130 2.

James II., apophthegm attributed to,

23
John, St., of Damascus, 88
Joinville, Chronicle of, cited, 170
Julian, the emperor, letters of, 157
Julius Cesar, Cicero’s account of,
162-3

K.

*¢Kiti them all, God will know his
own,” 252

King, Dr. W., Anecdotes of his own
lime, 234 2.

Koran, the, 81

la

La BauME, account of the retreat from
Moscow, 160

La Boetie, Le Contr’un, 43 2.

Lactantius on the shape of the globe,
126 2.

“La garde meurt,” &c., 232

«La mort sans phrase,” 257 x

Lascaris, Const., N. de Sabio’s edition
of his grammar, 17 ;

Las Casas, Account of the destruction
of the West Indies, 128, 145.

Latini, Zesoretto of, 11

Lauder’s reflections on Milton, 11

I

267

L’Ecluse, editor of Sully’s Memoirs, 175

“*L’Etat c’est moi,” 235

Leti, Gregorio, Wipotismo di Roma and
other works of, 223 2.

L’H6pital, Zpzstole, 203

Libanius the sophist, 166

Ligne, Prince de, Letters of, 238 x.

Local printing, 12

Lombardus, Petrus, Sentences of, 81
and 2.

Louis VI., anecdote of, 235 7.

Louis XI., humour of, 239

Louis XIV., anecdotes concerning
235-6 and note, 239 2.

Lucian, large bird described by, 93 x.

Luxury in 14th century, 71

M.

MACAULAY, memoirs cited by, 183,
186 ; style of, 243

Macrobius, 163

Mahabharata, 96 2.

Malespini, ovel/e of, 82

Malespini, R., Chronicle of, 257 x.

Mandeville, Sir J., Votage and Tra-
vale of, 202

Man, lion, and serpent, story of, 98

Manuscripts, discovery of, at Renais-
sance, 24

Manuzio, Aldo, on
books,” 27 and sg.

Mariana, on the discovery of the West
Indies, &c., 127

Maria Theresa (‘‘moriamur pro rege
nostro, &c.”), 248

Marino, G. B., Letters of, 158 x..

Marmier, X., Lettres sur U’Islande, 95

Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve,
accounts of, 44 ; and see Charles IX,

Maximilian the Great, celebrated letter
of, 157

**Maymund the Lazy,” stories of, 117
and sq.

M.D. L. R., Mémoires de, 191 n.

Medici, Alexander, book of anecdotes
concerning, see Ceccheregli; assassi-
nation of, 199 ; relations with Charles
V., 212, 215, 224

** prohibited
268

Medici, Hippolyto, poisoned, 223

Medici, Lorenzo, poems of, 33

Mémoires de Testat de France, 43, 178,
My 254

Menot, Michel, sermons of, 89 7.

Michel, Fr., Ze Pays Basgue, cited, 168

Milinda (King of Bactria), Ques-
tions of, 97

‘* Miscellanies,” literary, &c., 162

Molay, Jacques (1314), anecdote con-
cerning, 249 and zote

Monmouth, Geoffrey of, his Aéstoria
Britonum, 83

Monstrelet, Zhe
plaint, 70

Montaigne, Zssays, cited, 43; reflec-
tions on ‘* Memoirs,” 180

Montesquieu, Lettres familieres, cited,
134 7., 157 2.

‘*Moralisation,” medizval, specimen
of, 117

Morgan, Sir H., pirate, 136

Mortlake, early boatrace at, 159

Motteville, Mdme. de, Alemoirs of,
cited, 181, 190, 193

Muralt, Lettres sur les Anglois, &c.,
234 7.

Mythology, medizeval, chief sources of,
78 and sq.

Commoners Com-

N.

NAPLES, memoirs concerning, 181

Naudeana and Patiniana, cited, 27

Naunton, Sir R., Aragmenta Regalia,
182

Navarre, Charles the Bad, King of, 59,
63 2. 5 see Chapuy

Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, Queen
of, her Memozrs, 174,

Negation, predominance of, in modern
histories, 153

Nelson, Admiral, remark upon his
uniform at battle of Trafalgar, 246
and ote; his signals to the fleet, 2d.

Newburgh, William of, his reflections
on Geoffrey of Monmouth, 83

“‘News ” (the), apologue of, 118

Nichols, Forty Years of American Life,
161 72.

INDEX.

Nilus (the ascetic), Letters of, 164

‘*Nipoti” of the Popes, 222-3 and
note

Nonius Marcellus, anecdote preserved
by, 79 gs

North Briton, edition of, 38

North, Roger, Life of Lord Keeper
Guildford, 187

“Novels,” Italian collections of, 82

Novels (modern), prices of, 14

Oo.

OBSCURITY, medizval, examples of,
95 #5 96

Ochino, B., works of, 24

Oporinus, J., device of, 8

Ortentaliana, see Galland

Original Letters (8vo, 1755), cited, 134

Orléans, Duke of, catalogue of his
library (1427), 16 7.3; Duchess of,
Bonnet’s defence of, 2b. ; (Ch. Eliz.)
Duchess of, her Memotrs, 1923
Louis d’ Orléans, fanatical tract by, 44

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, mythological
importance of, 78 ., 80

Oxford, disturbances at, 169, 170 7.

P.

Pacitt?’s Herestography, 189

Panama, capture of, 141 and sg.

Pantcha Tantrum, mythological works
derived from, 86 7. ; see ‘‘ Bidpai”

Paper, German (of 17th century), dis-
coloured, 14

Paris, Matthew, cited, 24, 159

‘*Paris vaut bien une messe,” 247;
parallel reflection on England, 2d.

Pasquier, Estienne, his Recherches de
la France, 54 n. (2), 1733 his at-
tacks on the Jesuits, 173 2.

Pasquino and Marforio, colloquy of,
258 72.

Pastissier Francois (le), 20

Paul III. (Pope), Ch. VI. passém ; his
poverty, 211; alarmed by visit from
Alexander Medici, 223; relations
INDEX.

with Charles V., 211-15, 223-25;
with the Duke of Ferrara, 225
Pedro the Cruel, barbarities of, 72
Pepys’s Diary, cited, 131 ; latest edition
of, 154-5
“* Personality in history,” 234
Petrarch, vanity of, 156
Philip Augustus, anecdote concerning,

251

Philip of Valois, apophthegm attributed
to, 244

“¢ Pieces of eight,” value of, 131 72.

Pier-Luigi (Farnese), 221

Plantin press, 7, 8; device, 9

Platina’s Lives of the Popes, 29; auto-
biographical passage in, 218 7

Pliny the younger, letters of, 160-1;
MS. of letter to Trajan, 161

Ploetz, Karl, Epzlome of Histury, 153 2.

“© Poison for the Scotch,” 38

Poisoning, practice of, in Italy, 222-3

Political tracts, 43

Pollio, Vedius, anecdote of the bar-
barity of, 250

Porto Bello, capture of, 138 ; plate of,
122

ae pas qui cotite (ce n’est que le),
25

Procopius, Anecdota of,
edition of, 167

Prognostications, 214

Puritanism, Literature of, 185, 187

“‘Pyrenées,” Il n’y a plus de, 238

166; first

Q.

‘QUERLON, “‘ supercherie littéraire ” of,
258

‘Quintus Curtius, his historical romance,
106 ; and see Alexander

Quixote, Don, 39

R.

RasBitT, Brer, ingenuity of, 111

Rabelais (Ch. VI., pass¢m), Letters of,
207; decision of his case in the
Papal Court, 210, 219

269

‘Racine passera comme le café,”
259

Raleigh, Sir W., his expedition to
W. Indies, 146

Ramayana, 96 n.

Ramsay, Allan, Poems of, used as evi-
dence, 39

Ransom (of prisoners in 14th century),
55-6, 58-9 x. :

Rarity of books caused by—early pro-
duction, 5, 6; limited production, 13 ;
beauty of binding, &c., 16 ; locality of
printing, 12, 13; historical interest,
11; literary interest, 10 ; fashion of the
day, 14, 21; destruction by fire, &c.,
20; by wear and tear, zd. ; suppres-
sion, 21 and sg. ; corruption of text,
30, 34; mutilation during first im-
pression, 33

Recuetl de pieces servant & Phist. de
Henry I1l., &¢., 175, 180

“Recueil Factice,” specimen of, 45,
178 7.

Reresby, Sir J., AZemoirs of, 186 and
note

Reveillematin des Francois, &¢., 44

Revolution, French, Oficial List of Per-
sons gutllotined during, 41, &c.

Rheims, Za Chronique de Rains (ed.
1837), 252 x.

Richard I., fable 98;
anecdote of, 252

Richelieu, Cardinal, his ‘‘ robe rouge,”
&e., 245

Richelieu, Mazarin, &c., Tableau de
la vie de, 184 n. /

Robber and the moonbeam, fable of
the, 114

Robinson, Admiral Sir H., Sea-Drift,
246-7

Rochefort, Comte de, spurious memoirs
of, I9I 2.

Rochefoucauld, Duc de, Memoirs of,
191

Roland, romances of, 168; Chanson

de Roland, 169 n.

Rome (in 1536), 208; destruction of
buildings in, for the entry of Charles
V., 215, 217

Royal acts, edicts, &c., 40, 41

related by,
270

Rulhiére, Avecdotes
Revolution, 197
Ruskin, J., Poems of, 15

of the Russian

S.

SaBIo, Nic de, edition of Grammar of
Lascaris, 17

Sadolet, Letters of, 7, 209

Sainte-Palaye, AZémoztres sur la Cheva-
lerte, 54 72.

Salvian of Marseilles, 165

Sandebar, Parables of, 86

Satire Menippée, 44

“*Saulem,” a charm, I15

Savonarola, Revelations of, 36-7

Saxo Grammaticus, Story of Hamlet,
159

Saxon Chronicle, curious entry in, 159

Scot, Lewis, pirate, 135

Sects, Religious, of
189 x.

Segni, /storie Fiorentine, cited, 222

Servetus, tracts of, 23

Seven Sages, The (Italian version of),
85-6

Seventeenth century, note on the, 184;
Carlyle on the literature of, 185

Severus, Sulpicius, 164 7.

Sévigné, Letéers of (ed. 1720), 34, 184,

17th century,

259
Shakespeare’s Richard J/., cited, 62
Shakspearian plays, prices of, 18, 19
Sidonius Apollinaris, Zetters of, 163
Siéyes, Abbé, famous tract of, 46;
alleged remark of, 257
Sixteenth century, an age of reproduc-
tion, 36; peculiar interest of, 177
Sleidan’s Commentaries, 33
Socrates (pseudo), 116
Somerville, Dr., memoirs of, cited, 39,

152

Sonnius, Michel, device used by, 164 ;
rare edition of Pasquier’s Recherches,
173 7.

Sorbin, Ant., de Saincte-Foy, Vie de
Charles [X., 254

Spectator, The, cited, 26

INDEX.

Spence’s Anecdotes, cited, 249 7.
Spence, T., anti-Hanoverian satires of,

45
Strozzi, Filippo, intrigues of, 211-12,

224

Sully’s Memoirs (ed. 1649), Patin’s
remark on, 353 singular form of,
175

Surtees, romances by, 14

Sylvester II. obliged
Cesar, I

Synesius, Letters of, 164 7.

to borrow a

T.

TasourotT, Estienne, 210 7.; Bigar-
rures of, cited, zd.

Tacitus, early editions of, 6

Teach, ‘‘ Blackbeard,” 145

Tennysons, poems of the, 15

“© Tout est perdu fors Phonneur,” 258

Tracts and pamphlets, 41-46; of 16th
century, 43; of 17th century, 42,
45; two volumes of miscellaneous,
45 7. ; in verse, 202

Trissino’s Jta‘ia Liberata, mutilation
of text of, 33

“Trivium” and ‘ Quadrivium,” 101

Turks, great defeat of, 213

Turpin (pseudo), Astoria Caroli
Magni, 168 ; French texts of, 169

Typography, early, 5 and sg., 36; sen-
timental effect of, 36; bad but
interesting, 42

Uz.

Usk, Adam of, describes a riot at
Oxford, 170 7.

v.

VALERIUS Maximus, wrongly cited
by Villon, 79

Van Tromp, Martin, 147

Vaux-Cernay, P. de, Historia Albigen-
STUM, 253
INDEX. 271

Vedas, note on, 96 2.

“* Vengeur,” sinking of the, 233

Venice, Sguztinio della Liberta Veneta,
42

Venner, portrait of, 188

Villani, chronicles of the, 171; Gio-
vanni, cited, 171 and 257 2.

Villon’s story of Alexander and the
pirate, 79 7.

Vinlandie Antique Historia, 201 n.

‘© Virelets,” 54

Virgil, first edition of his works, 38;
the medizval Virgil, 103

Vogt, Catalogus librorum rariorum, §

Voltaire, 157 7. (3); Lettres sur les
Anglois, 194; Lettres inédites (1818),
195-6; Vie privée de (by Duvernet),
1955 portrait of, 2d. ; Candide, 237
m.3 historical inventions of, 239 ;
intolerance of those of other people,
26.3; note to the Henriade, anecdote
concerning Charles IX., 254; epi-
gram on Racine, 259

Voyages and Travels, valuable collec-
tions of, 201 7.

Voyages, early, 35-6

W.

WALES, Prince and Princess of, tact
and courtesy shown by, 59 7.

Walpole, Horace, remarks on manner
of writing history, 241 ; Zetéers and
Memoirs, &c., of, 197-8 ; letters to
Mann, examination paper on, 237 .

Walton’s Complete Angler, 19

Warnefrid, Paul, Aistory of the Lom-
bards, 84 2.

Wellington, Duke of, observation at-
tributed to, 232

Welwood’s ALemoirs, 184

Wiclif, Dialogues of, 26

William of Orange, speech by, on
landing in England, 249 x.

Wincelaus, King of Bohemia, ballads
of, 55

Winchester, eccentric Marquis of, 189

Wits Commonwealth, 20

Wraxall, Sir N. W., Aestorical (and
other) Memoztrs of, 248 note

X.

XENOPHON, 160

Y.

YvaIN, son of Comte de Foix, 60,
61-2 ; tragical death of, 65
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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