VE% ^lOS»l£r^ ^OFCAllfOl?^ ^^FCAIIFOM^ ^ g I I § /•S0# %iAINn3WV^ Ce. 17= § ^1 1 aMUBRARYQ^ § 1 ir^^ r).JO^ ^OJITVO'^IO'^ ^OF-CAUFOff^ .5.W£UNiVER5yA vjclOSANCElfx. CO ^10SANCEI% x^Of g ^ MAINJl'IWV ^ ^ "^j^ C3 5o o ^n'^ %i -3> ^t'UBRARY^^^ -jAt-UBRARYQc. ^i ITW ^1 ir?i 5^- fie CO =3 AMf I ..„,. #1IBI!ARY(?A AWEUNIVER^x WER% -i •< 1 s d ^(!fO mis^. ^0! ^•lOSANCElfJiX V/5a3AINa-3WV ^OFCAUFOff^ ^OF'CAII' ^^•AHvaan-^^ '-^omm VJ ^ ^lllBRARYf?/^ ^^Anvaari- .<^ m ii2s head. He did not believe thaU,is Iriend was rn a consumption, but being a De^hire man, and loving very much his native p^„ce, he highly approved of the remedy. He gave my father several letters of nrtroduction to persons of consideration at Exeter ; among others, one whom he justly described as a poet and a physician, and the best of men, the lae Dr. Hugh Downmap. Provincial cities very often enjoy a transient term of intellectual distinc- tion. An eminent man often collects around him eongenial spirits, and the power of association some- toes produces distant effects which even an indi- vidual, however gifted, could scarcely have antici- pated. A combination of circumstances had made at this time E.«ter a literary metropolis. A number of distmgmshed men flourished there at the same moment: some of their names are even now rcmem- bered. Jackson of Exeter stUl survives as a native composer of original genius. He was also an au- thor of high ajsthetical speculation. The heroic OF THE AUTHOR. 25 poems of Hole are forgotten, but his essay on the Arabian Nights is still a cherished volume of elegant and learned criticism. Hayter was the classic anti- quary who first discovered the art of unrolling the MSS. of Herculaneum. There were many others, noisier and more bustling, who are now forgotten, though they in some degree influenced the literary opinion of their time. It was said, and I believe truiy, that the two principal, if not sole, organs of periodical criticism at that time, I think the " Crit- ical ■ Review " and the " Monthly Review," were principally supported by Exeter contributions. No doubt this circumstance may account for a great deal of mutual praise and sympathetic opinion on literary subjects, which, by a convenient arrange- ment, appeared in the pages of publications other- wise professing contrary opinions on all others. Exeter had then even a learned society which pub- lished its Transactions. With such companions, by whom he was received with a kindness and hospitality which to the last he often dwelt on, it may easily be supposed that the banishment of my father from the delights of literary London was not as productive a source of gloom as the exile of Ovid to the savage Pontus, even if it had not been his happy fortune to have been received on terms of intimate friendship, by the accomplished family of Mr. Baring, who was then member foi Exeter, and beneath whose roof he passed a great 26 LIFE AND WRITINGS portion of the period of nearly three years, during which he remained in Devonshire. Tlie ihness of my father was relieved, but not removed, by this change of life. Dr. Downman was his physician, whose only remedies were port wine, horse-exercise, rowing on the neighbouring river, and the distraction of agreeable society. This wise physician recognized the temperament of his patient, and perceived that his physical derangement was an effect instead of a cause. My father instead of being in a consumption, was endowed with a frame of almost superhuman strength, and which was destined for half a century of continuous labour and sedentary life. The vital principle in him, in- deed, was so strong that when he left us at eighty- two, it was only as the victim of a violent epidemic, against whose virulence he sti-uggled with so much power, that it was clear, but for this casualty, he might have been spared to this world even for sev- eral years. I should think that this illness of his youth, and which, though of a fitful character, was of many years duration, arose from his inability to direct lo a satisfactory end the intellectual power which he was conscious of possessing. He would men- tion the ten years of his life, from twenty-five to tliirty-five years of age, as a period very deficient in self-contentedness. The fact is, with a poetic tem- perament, he had been born in an age when the OF THE AUTHOR. 27 poetic faith of which he was a votary had fallen into decrepitude, and had become only a form with the public, not yet gifted with sufficient fervour to discover a new creed. He was a pupil of Pope and Boileau, yet both from his native impulse and from the glowing influence of Rousseau, he felt the ne- cessity and desire of infusing into the verse of the day more passion than might resound from the frigid lyre of Mr. Hayley. My father had fancy, sensibil- ity, and an exquisite taste, but he had not that rare creative power, which the blended and simultaneous influence of the individual organization and the spirit of the age, reciprocally acting upon each other, can alone, perhaps, perfectly develop ; the absence of which, at periods of transition, is so universally recognized and deplored, and yet w'hich always, when it does arrive, captivates us, as it were, by surprise. How much there was of fresh- ness, and .fancy, and natural pathos in his mind, may be discerned in his Persian romance of " The Loves of Mejnoon and Leila." We who have been accustomed to the great poets of the nineteenth century seeking their best inspiration in the climate and manners of the East; who are familiar witli the land of the Sun from the isles of Ionia to the vales of Cashmere ; can scarcely appreciate the lit- erary originality of a writer who, fifty years ago, dared to devise a real Eastern story, and seeking Inspiration in the pages of Oriental literature, com- 28 LIFE AND WRITINGS pose it with reference to the Eastern mind, and customs, and landscape. One must have been familiar with the Almoran and Hamets, the visions of Mirza and the kings of Ethiopia, and the other dull and monsti-ous masquerades of Orientalism then prevalent, to estimate such an enterprise, in which, however, one should not forget the author had the advantage of the guiding friendship of that distinguished Orientalist, Sir William Ouseley. The reception of this work by the public, and of other works of fiction which its author gave to them anonymously, was in every respect encouraging, and their success may impartially be registered as fairly proportionate to their merits ; but it was not a success, or a proof of power, which, in my father's opinion, compensated for that life of literary re- search and study which their composition dis- turbed and enfeebled. It was at the ripe age of five-and-thirty that he renounced his dreams of being an author, and resolved to devote himself for the rest of his life to the acquisition of knowl- edge. When my father, many years afterwards, made the acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott, the great poet, saluted him by reciting a poem of half-a-dozen stanzas which my father had written in his early youth. Not altogether without agitation, sm-prise was expressed that these lines should have been known, still more that they should have been re- OF THE AUTHOR. 29 membered. " Ah!" said Sir Walter, "if the writer of these lines had gone on, he would have been an English poet."* It is possible ; it is even probable that, if my father had devoted himself to the art, he might have become the author of some elegant and popular didactic poem, on some ordinary subject, which his fancy would have adorned with grace and his sensi- bility invested with sentiment ; some small volume which might have reposed with a classic title upon our library shelves, and served as a prize volume at Ladies' Schools. This celebrity was not reserved for him ; instead of this he was destined to give to his country a series of works illustrative of its liter- ary and political history, full of new information and new views, which time and opinion have ratified as just. But the poetical temperament was not thrown away upon him, it never is on any one; it was this great gift which prevented his being a mere literary antiquary ; it was this which animated his page with picture and his narrative with interesting vivacity; above all, it was this temperament, which invested him with that sympathy with his subject, which made him the most delightful biographer in our language. In a word, it was because he was a * Sir Walter was sincere, for he inserted the poem in tlie " English Minstrelsy." It may now be found in these volumes, Vol. I. p. 313, where, in consequence of the recollection of Sir Walter, and as illustrative of manners now obsolete, it was subsequently inserted. 30 LIFE AND WRITINGS poet, that he was a popular writer, and made beUes- letti-es charming to the multitude. It was during the ten years that now occurred, that he mainly acquired that store of facts which were the foundation of his future speculations. His pen was never idle, but it was to note and to register, not to compose. His researches were proset^uted every morning among the MSS. of the British Mu- seum, whUe his own ample collections permitted him to pursue his investigation in his own library into the night. The materials which he accumulated during this period are only partially exhausted. At the end of ten years, dm-ing which, with the exception of one anonymous work, he never indulged in com- position, the irresistible desire of communicating his conclusions to the world came over him, and after all his almost childish aspirations, his youth of rev- erie and hesitating and imperfect effort, he arrived at the mature age of forty-five before his career as a great author, influencing opinion, really commenced. The next ten years passed entirely in production ; from 1812 to 1822 the press abounded with his works. His » Calamities of Authors," his " Memoirs of Literary Cohtroversy," in the manner of Bayle ; his » Essay on the Literary Character," the most perfect of his compositions; were all chapters in that History of English Literature which he then com- menced to meditate, and which it was fated should never be completed. OF THE AUTHOR. 31 Jt was during "this period also that he published his "Inquiry into the Literary and Political Charac- ter of James the First," in which he first opened those views respecting the times and the conduct of the Stuarts, which were opposed to the long prevalent opinions of this country, but which with him wvie at least the result of unprejudiced research, and their promulgation, as he himself expressed it, " an affair of literary conscience." * But what retarded his project of a History of our Literature at this time was the almost embarrassing success of his juvenile production, " The Curiosities of Literature." These two volumes had already reached five editions, and their author found himself, by the pubhc demand, again called upon to sanction their reappearance. Recognizing in this circum- stance some proof of their utility, he resolved to make the work more worthy of the favour which it enjoyed, and more calculated to produce the benefit which he desired. Without attempting materially to alter the character of the first two volumes, ho * "The present inquiry originates in an affair of literary conscience. Many years ago I set off with the popular notions of the character of James the First; but in the course of study, and with a more enlarged comprehension of the age, I was frequently struck by the contrast between his real and his apparent character ***** * * * * It would be a cowardly silence to shrink from encountering all that popular prejudice and party feeling may oppose; this would be incompatible with that constant search after truth, which at least may be expected from the retired student." — Preface to thi Inquiry ^2 LIFE AND WRITINGS revised and enriched them, while at the same time he added a third volume of a vein far more critical, and conveying the results of much original research. The success of this publication was so great, that its author, after much hesitation, resolved, as he was wont to say, to take advantage of a popular title, and pour forth the treasures of his mind in three additional volumes, which, unlike continuations in general, were at once greeted with the highest de- gree of popular delight and esteem. And, indeed, whether we consider the choice variety of the sub- jects, the critical and philosophical speculation which pervades them, the amount of new and interesting information brought to bear, and the animated style in which all is conveyed, it is diffi- cult to conceive miscellaneous literature in a garb more stimulating and attractive. These six volumes' after many editions, are now condensed into the form at present given to the public, and in which the development of their wi-iter's mind for a quarter of a century may be completely traced. Although my father had on the whole little cause to complain of unfak criticism, especially considering how isolated he always remained, it is not to be supposed that a success so eminent should have been exempt in so long a course from some captious comment. It has been alleged of late years by some critics, that he was in the habit of exaggerating the importance of his researches; that he was too fond OF TlIK AUTHOR. 33 of styling every accession to our knowledge, how- ever slight, a discovery; that there were some inac- curacies in his early volumes, (not very wonderful in so multifarious a work,) and that the foundation of his "secret history" was often only a single letter, or a passage in a solitary diary. The sources of secret history at the present day are so rich and various ; there is such an eagerness among their possessors to publish family papers, even sometimes in shapes, and at dates so recent, as scarcely to justify their appearance ; that modern critics, in their embarrassment of manuscript wealth, are apt to view with too depreciating an eye, the more limited resources of men of letters at the com- mencement of the century. Not five-and-twenty years ago, when preparing his work on King Charles the First, the application of my father to make some researches in the State Paper Office, was refused by the Secretary of State of the day. Now, foreign potentates and ministers of State, and pub- lic corporations, and the heads of great houses, feel honoured by such appeals, and respond to them with cordiality. It is not only the State Paper Office of England, but the Archives of France, that are open to the historical investigator. But what has produced this general and expanding taste for literary research in the world, and especially in England ? The labours of our elder authors, whose taste and acuteness taught us the value of the VOL. I. 3 34 UFK AND WRITINGS materials which we in our ignorance neglected. When my father first frequented the reading-room of the British Museum at the end of the last cen- tury, his companions never numbered half a dozen ; among them, if I remember rightly, were Mr. Pin- kerton and Mr. Douce. Now these daily pilgrims of research may be counted by as many hundreds. Few writers have more contributed to form and diffuse this delightful and profitable taste for re- search, than the author of the « Curiosities of Lit- erature;" few writers have been more successful in inducing us to pause before we accepted with- out a scruple the traditionary opinion that has distorted a fact or calumniated a character ; and independently of every other claim which he pos- sesses to public respect, his literary discoveries, viewed in relation to the age and the means, were considerable. But he had other claims: a vital spirit in his page, kindred with the souls of a Bayle and a Montaigne. His innumerable imi- tators and their inevitable failure for half a century alone prove this, and might have made them suspect that there were some ingredients in the spell besides the accumulation of facts and a happy title. Many of their publications, perpetually appearing and constantly forgotten, were drawn up by persons of considerable acquirements, and were ludicrously mimetic of their prototype, even as to the size of the volume and the form of the page. What has OF THE AUTHOR. 35 become of these " Varieties of Literature," and "Delichts of Literatm-e," and " Delicacies of Lit- erature," and " Relics of Literature," — and the other Protean forms of uninspired compilation ? Dead as they deserve to be : while the work, the idea of which occurred to its writer in his early youth, and which he lived virtually to execute in all the ripe- ness of his studious manhood, remains as fresh and popular as ever, — the Literary Miscellany of the English People. I have ventured to enter into some details as to the earlier and obscurer years of my father's life, because I thought that they threw light upon hu- man character, and that without them, indeed, a just appreciation of his career could hardly be formed. I am mistaken, if we do not recognize in his instance t\vo very interesting qualities of life : predisposition and self-formation. There was a third, which I think is to be honoured, and that was his sympathy with his order. No one has written so much about authors, and so well. In- deed, before his time the Literary Character had never been fairly placed before the world. He comprehended its idiosyncrasy: all its strength and all its weakness. He could soften, because he could explain, its infirmities ; in the analysis and record of its power, he vindicated the right position of authors in the social scale. They stand between the governors and the governed, he impresses on us 36 LIFE AND WRITINGS in the closing pages of his greatest work.* Though he shared none of the calamities, and scarcely any of the controversies, of literature, no one has sym- pathized so intimately with the sorrows, or so zeal- ously and impartially registered the instructive dis- putes, of literary men. He loved to celebrate the exploits of great writers, and to show that, in ihese ages, the pen is a weapon as puissant as the sword. He was also the fii'st writer who vindicated the position of the great artist in the history of genius. His pages are studded with pregnant instances and graceful details, borrowed from the life of Art and its votaries, and which his intimate and curious acquaintance with Italian letters readily and happily supplied. Above all writers, he has maintained the greatness of intellect, and the immortality of thought. He was himself a complete literary character, a man who really passed his life in his library. Even marriage produced no change in these habits ; he rose to enter the chamber where he lived alone with his books, and at night his lamp was ever lit withm the same walls. Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable than the isolation of this prolonged ex- istence ; and it could only be accounted for by the united influence of three causes : his birth, which brought him no relations or family acquaintance. * " Essay on the Literary Character," Vol. II. chap. xxv. OF THE AUTirOK. 37 the bent of his disposition, and tho circumstance of his inheriting an independent fortune, which rendered unnecessary those exertions, that would have broken up his self-reliance. He disliked busi- ness, and he never required relaxation ; he was absorbed in his pursuits. In London his only amusement was to ramble among booksellers; if he entered a club, it was only to go into the library. In the country, he scarcely ever left his room, but to saunter in abstraction upon a terrace ; muse over a chapter, or coin a sentence. He had not a single passion or prejudice : all his convictions were the result of his own studies, and were often opposed to the impressions which he had early imbibed. He not only never entered into the politics of the day, but he could never understand them. He never was connected with any particular body or set of men ; comrades of school or college, or confederates in that public life which, in England, is, perhaps, the only foundation of real friendship. In the con- sideration of a question, his mind was quite undis- turbed by traditionary preconceptions ; and it was this exemption from passion and prejudice which, although his intelligence was naturally somewhat too ingenious and fanciful for the conduct of close argument, enabled him, in investigation, often to show many of the highest attributes of the judicial mind, and particularly to sum up evidence with singular happiness and ability. S8 LIFE AND WRITINGS Although in private life he was of a timid nature, his moral courage as a writer was unimpeachable.' Most certainly, throughout his long career, he never wrote a sentence which he did not believe was true. He will generally be found to be the advocate of the discomfited and the oppressed. So his conclusions are often opposed to popular impressions. This was from no love of paradox, to which he was quite su- perior; but because in the conduct of his researches, he too often found that the unfortunate are calum- niated. His vindication of King James the First, he has himself described as « an affair of literary conscience:" his greater work on the life and times of the son of the first Stuart arose from the same impulse. He had deeply studied our history during the first moiety of the seventeenth century ; he looked upon it as a famous age ; he was familiar with the works of its great writers, and there was scarcely one of its almost innumerable pamphlets with which he was not acquainted. During the thoughtful investi- gations of many years, he had arrived at results which were not adapted to please the passing multi- tude, but which, because he held them to be authentic, he was uneasy lest he should die without recording. Yet strong as were his convictions, although, not- withstanding his education in the revolutionary phi- losophy of the eighteenth century, his nature and his studies had made him a votary of loyalty and rever- ence, his pen was always prompt to do justice to OF THE AUTHOR. 39 those who might be looked upon as the adversaries of his own cause : and this was because his cause was really truth. If he have upheld Laud under unjust aspersions, the last labour of his literary life was to vindicate the character of Hugh Peters. If, from tlie recollection of the sufferings of his race, and from profound reflection on the principles of the In- stitution, he was hostile to the Papacy, no writer in our literature has done more complete justice to the conduct of the English Romanists. Who can read his history of Chidiock Titchbourne unmoved ? Or can refuse to sympathize with his account of the painful difficulties of the English Monarchs with their loyal subjects of the old faith ? If in a parliamentary country he has dared to criticize the conduct of Par- liaments, it was only because an impartial judgment had taught him, as he himself expresses it, that " Par- liaments have their passions as well as individuals." He was five years in the composition of his work on the " Life and Reign of Charles the First," and the five volumes appeared at intervals between 1828 and 1831. It was feared by his publisher, that the distracted epoch at which this work was issued, and the tendency of the times, apparently so adverse to his own views, might prove very injurious to its re- ception. But the effect of these circumstances was the reverse. The minds of men were inclined to the grave and national considerations that were involved in these investigations. The principles of political ^^ I'fF'K AND WRITINGS institutions, the rival claims of the two Houses of i^arhament, the authority of the Established Church the demands of religious sects, were, after a ionJ lapse of years, anew the theme of public discussioru Men were attracted to a writer who traced the origin of the anti-monarchical principle in modern Europe- treated of the arts of insurgency ; gave them, at the! same t.me, a critical history of the Puritans, and a treatise on the genius of the Papacy ; scrutinized the conduct of triumpiiant patriots, and vindicated a decapitated monarch. The success of this work was emment; and its author appeared for the first, and only time, of his life in public, when amidst the cheers of under-graduates, and the applause of graver men, the solitary student received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, a fitting homage, in the language of the great University, " optimi regis OPTIMO VINDICI." I cannot but recaU a trait that happened on this occasion. After my father returned to his hotel from the theati-e, a stranger requested an interview with him A Swiss gentleman, travelling in England at the time, who had witnessed the scene just closed begged to express the reason why he presumed thus personally and cordially to congratulate the new Doctor of Civil Law. He was the son of my grand- fathers chief clerk, and remembered his parent's em- ployer ; whom he regretted did not survive to be aware of this honourable day. Thus, amid aU the OF THE AUTHOR. 41 Btrange vicissitudes of life, we axe ever, as it were^ moving in a circle. Notwithstanding he was now approaching his sev- entieth year, his health being unbroken and his con- stitution very robust, my father resolved vigorously to devote himself to the composition of the history of our vernacular Literature. He hesitated for a moment, whether he should at once address himself to this greater task, or whether he should first com- plete a Life of Pope, for which he had made great preparations, and which had long occupied his thoughts. His review of " Spence's Anecdotes " in the Quarterly, so far back as 1820, which gave rise to the celebrated Pope Controversy, in which Mr. Campbell, Lord Byron, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Roscoe, and others less eminent broke lances, would prove how well qualified, even at that distant date, the critic was to become the biographer of the great writer, whose literary excellency and moral conduct he, on that occasion, alike vindicated. But, unfortunately as it turned out, my father was persuaded to address himself to the weightier task. Hitherto, in his pub- lications, he had always felt an extreme reluctance to travel over ground which others had previously visited. He liked to give new matter, and devote himself to detached points, on which he entertained different opinions from those prevalent. Thus his works are generally of a supplementary character, and assume in their readers a certain degree of pre- 42 LIFE AND WRITINGS liminary knowledge. lu the present instance, he was induced to frame his undertaking on a different Bcale, and to prepare a history which should be com- plete in itself, and supply the reader with a perfect view of the gradual formation of our language and literature. He proposed to effect this in six vol- umes ; though, I apprehend, he would not have suc- ceeded in fulfilling his intentions within that limit. His treatment of the period of Queen Anne would have been very ample, and he would also have ac- complished in this general work, a purpose which he had also long contemplated, and for which he had made curious and extensive collections, namely, a History of the English Freethinkers. But all these great plans were destined to a terri- ble defeat. Towards the end of the year 1839, still in the full vigour of his health and intellect, he suf- fered a paralysis of the optic nerve ; and that eye, which for so long a term had kindled with critical interest over the volumes of so many literatures and so many languages, was doomed to pursue its ani- mated course no more. Considering the bitterness of such a calamity to one whose powers were other- wise not in the least impaired, he bore on the whole his fate with magnanimity, even with cheerfulness. Unhappily, his previous habits of study and compo- sition rendered the habit of dictation intolerable, even impossible to him. But with the assistance of his daughter, whose intelligent solicitude he has OF THK AUTHOR. 43 commemorated in more than one grateful passage, he selected from his manuscripts three volumes, which he wished to have published under the be- coming title of " A Fragment of a History of Eng- lish Literature," but which were eventually given to the public under that of " Amenities of Liter- ature." He was also enabled during these last years of physical, though not of moral, gloom, to prepare a new edition of his work on the Life and Times of Charles the First which had been for some time out of print. He contrived, though slowly, and with great labour, very carefully to revise, and improve, and enrich these volumes, which will now be condensed into three. His miscellaneous works, all illustrative of the political and literary history of this country, will form three more. He was wont to say that the best monument to an author was a good edition of his works : it is my purpose that he should possess this memorial. He has been described by a great authority as a writer sui gen- eris ; and indeed had he never written, it appears to me, that there would have been a gap in our libra- ries, which it would have been difficult to supply. Of him it might be added that, for an author, his end was an euthanasia, for on the day before he was seized by that fatal epidemic, of the danger of which, to the last moment, he was unconscious, he .was apprised by his publishers, that all his works 44 LIFE AND WETTINGS were out of print, and that their republication could no longer be delayed. In this notice of the career of my father, I have ventured to draw attention to three circumstances which I thought would be esteemed interesting ; namely, predisposition, self-formation, and sympathy with his order. There is yet another which com- pletes and crowns the character,— constancy of purpose; and it is only in considering his course as a whole, that we see how harmonious and consistent have been that life and its labom-s, which, in a partial and brief view, might be supposed to have been somewhat desultory and fragmentary. On his moral character I shall scarcely presume to dwell. The philosophic sweetness of his dis- position, the serenity of his lot, and the elevating nature of his pursuits, combined to enable him to pass through life without an evil act, almost without an evil thought. As the world has always been fond of personal details respecting men who have been celebrated, I wiU mention that he was fair, with a Bourbon nose, and brown eyes of extra- ordinary beauty and lustre. He wore a small black velvet cap, but his white hair latterly touched his shoulders in curls almost as flowing as in his boy- hood. His extremities were delicate and well- formed, and his leg, at his last hour, as shapely as in his youth, which showed the vigour of his frame. Latterly he had become corpulent. He did OF THE AUTHOR. 45 not excel in conversation, though in his domestic cii'cle he was garrulous. Everything interested hhn ; and blind, and eighty-two, he was still as susceptible as a child. One of his last acts was to compose some verses of gay gratitude to his daughter-in-law, who was his London coiTespondent, and to whose lively pen his last years were indebted for constant amusement. He had by nature a singular volatility which never deserted him. His feelings, though always amiable, were not painfully deep, and amid joy or sorrow, the philosophic vein was ever evident. He more resembled Goldsmith than any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation, his apparent confusion of ideas ending with some fe- licitous phrase of genius, his naivete, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm affecting innocence — one was often reminded of the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency of self-esteem. On the whole, I hope — nay I believe — that taking all into consideration — the integrity and complete- ness of his existence, the fact that, for sixty years, he largely contributed to form the taste, charm the leisure, and direct the studious dispositions, of the great body of the public, and that his works have 4(5 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR. extensively and curiously illustrated the literary and political history of our country, it wiU be conceded, that in his life and labours, he repaid England for the protection and the hospitality which this country accorded to his father a century ago. D. HUGHE>T)EN SIaXOR, Christmas, 1848. CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. LIBRARIES. The passion for forming vast collections of books has necessarily existed in all periods of human curiosity ; but long it required regal munificence to found a national hbraiy. It is only since the art of multiplying the productions of the mind has been discovered, that men of letters themselves have been enabled to rival tliis imperial and patriotic honour. The taste for books, so rare before the fifteenth century, has gradually become general only within these four hundred years : in that small space of time the pubUc mind of Europe has been created. Of Libraries, the following anecdotes seem most inter- esting, as they mark either the affection, or the veneration, which civihzed men have ever felt for these perennial reposi- tories of their minds. The first national library founded in Egypt seemed to have been placed under the protection of (he divinities, for their statues magnificently adorned this temple, dedicated at once to religion and to literature. It was still further embellished by a well-known inscription, for ever grateful to the votary of literature ; on the front was engraven — " The nourishment of the soul ; " or, according to Diodorus, " The medicine of the mind." The Egyptian Ptolemies founded the vast hbrary of Alex- VOL. I. 4 50 LIBRARIES. aiidria, which was afterwards the emuhitive hibour of lival monarchs ; the founder infused a soul into the vast body he was creating, by his choice of the hbrarian, Demetrius Pha- lereus, wliose skilful industry amassed from all nations their clioicest productions. Without such a libi-arian, a national iibiary would be little more than a literary chaos; his well- exercised memory and critical judgment are its best cata- logue. One of the Ptolemies refused supplying the famished Athenians with wheat, until they presented him with the original manuscripts of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides ; and in returning copies of these autogra})hs, he allowed them to retain tlie fifteen talents which he had pledged with them as a princely security. Wlien tyrants, or usurpers, have possessed sense as well A3 courage, they have proved the most ardent patrons of literature ; they know it is their interest to turn aside the pubhc mind from political speculations, and to afford theu' subjects the inexhaustible occupations of curiosity, and the consoling pleasures of the imagination. Thus Pisistratus is said to have been among the earliest of the Greeks, who projected an immense collection of the works of the learned, and is supposed to have been the collector of the scattered works, which passed under the name of Homer. The Romans, after six centuries of gradual dominion, must have possessed the vast and diversified collections of tlie writings of the nations they conquered : among the most valued spoils of their victories, we know that manuscripts were considered as more pi*ecious than vases of gold. Pau- lus Emilius, after the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedon, brought to Rome a great number which he had amassed in Greece, and whicli he now distributed among his sons, or presented to the Roman people. Sylla followed his example. After the siege of Athens, he discovered an entire library in the temple of Apollo, which having carried to Rome, he appears to have been the founder of the first Roman pubhc librarv. After the taking of Carthage, the Roman senate LIBRARIES. 51 rewarded the family of Regulus with the books found in that city. A library was a national gift, and the most honourable they could bestow. From the intercourse of the Komang with the Greeks, the passion for forming Ubraries rapidly increased, and individuals began to pride themselves on their private collections. Of many illustrious Eomans, their magnificent taste in tlieir Ubraries has been recorded. Asinius PoUio, Crassus, Caesar, and Cicero, have, among others, been celebrated for their literary s])lendor. Lucullus, whose incredible opulence exhausted itself on more than imperial luxuries, more hon- ourably distinguished himself by his vast collections of books, and the happy use he made of them by the liberal access he allowed the learned. " It was a library," says Plutarch, " whose walks, galleries, and cabinets, were open to all vis- itors ; and the ingenious Greeks, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses to hold literary conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join." This libi'ary, en- larged by others, Julius Ctesar once j)roposed to open for the public, having chosen the erudite Yarro for its librarian ; but the daggers of Brutus and his party prevented the meditated projects of Caisar. In this museum, Cicero frequently pur- sued his studies, during the time his friend Faustus had the charge of it ; which he describes to Atticus in his 4th Book, Epist. 9. Amidst his pubhc occupations and his private studies, either of them sufficient to have immortalized one man, we are astonished at the minute attention Cicero paid to the formation of his hbraries and his cabinets of antiqui- ties. The emperors were ambitious, at length, to give their names to the libraries they founded ; they did not consider the purple as their chief ornament. Augustus was himself an author; and to one of those sumptuous buildings, called ITiermcB, ornamented with porticos, galleries, and statues, with shady walks, and refreshing baths, testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent library. One of these 52 LIBRARIES. libraries he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia ; and the other, the temple of Apollo, became the haunt of the poets, as Horace, Juvenal, and Persius have commemorated. The successors of Augustus imitated his example, and even Tiberius had an imperial library, chiefly consisting of works concerning the empire and the acts of its sovereigns. These Trajan augmented by the Ulpian library, denominated from his family name. In a word, we have accounts of the rich ornaments the ancients bestowed on their hbraries ; of their floors paved with marble, their walls covered with glass and ivory, and their shelves and desks of ebony and cedar. The first public library in Italy was founded by a person of no considerable fortune : his credit, liis frugality, and for- titude, were indeed equal to a treasury. Nicholas Niccoli, the son of a merchant, after the death of his father relin- quished the beaten roads of gain, and devoted his soul to study, and his fortune to assist students. At his death, he left liis library to the public, but his debts exceeding his effects, the princely generosity of Cosmo de' Medici realized the intention of its former possessor, and afterwards enriched it by the addition of an apartment, in which he placed the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic,. Chaldaic, and Indian MSS. The intrepid spirit of Nicholas V. laid the foundations of the Vatican ; the affection of Cardinal Bessarion for liis country first gave Venice the rudiments of a public library ; and to Sir T. Bodley we owe the invaluable one of Oxford. Su: Robert Cotton, Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Birch, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Douce, and others of this race of lovers of books, have all contributed to form these hterary treasures, which our nation owe to the enthusiasm of individuals, who have conse- crated their fortunes and their days to this great public object; or, which in the result produces the same pubhc good, the collections of such men have been frequently pur- chased on their deaths, by government, and thus have been preserved entire in our national collections. LiTERATuuE, like vu-tue, is often its own reward, and the LIBRARIES. 53 enthusiasm some experience in the permanent enjoyments of a vast library has for outweighed the neglect or the calumny of the world, which some of its votaries have received. From the time that Cicero poured forth his feelings in liis oration for the poet Archias, innumerable are the testimonies of men of letters of the pleasurable delirium of their re- searches. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chan- cellor of England, so early as 1341, perhaps raised the first private library in our country. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the Abbot of St. Albans for fifty pounds' weight of silver. He w^as so enamoured of liis large collection, that he expressly composed a treatise on his love of books, under the title of Philvbiblion ; and which has been recently trans- lated. He who passes much of his time amid such vast resources, and does not aspire to make some small addition to his library, were it only by a critical catalogue, must indeed be not more animated than a leaden Mercury. He must be as indolent as that animal called the Sloth, who perishes on the tree he climbs, after he has eaten all its leaves. Rantzau, the founder of the gi-eat library at Copenhagen, whose days were dissolved in the pleasures of reading, dis- covers his taste and ardour in the following elegant effu- sion : - Salvete aureolimci libelli, Meae deliciae, mei leporesl Quam vos ssepe oculis juvat videre, Et tritos manibus tenere nostris! Tot vos eximii, tot eniditi, Prisci lumina saeculi et recentis, Confecere viri, siiasque vobis Ausi credere lucubrationes: Etsperare decus perenne scriptis; Neque haec irrita spes fefeUit illos. IMITATED. Golden volumes ! richest treasures! Objects of delicious pleasures! You my ej'es rejoicing please, 54 LIBRA RIKS. You my hands in rapture seize! Brilliant wits, and musing sages, Lights who beamed through many ages. Left to your conscious leaves their story. And dared to trust you with their glory; And now their hope of fame achieved, Dear volumes! you have not deceived! This passion for tlie enjoyment of booh has occasioned their lovers embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments ; a fancy which ostentation may have abused ; but when these volumes belong to the real man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his taste and feelings. The great Thuanus procured the finest copies for his library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his auto- graph on the last page. A celebrated amateur, was Grollier ; the Muses themselves could not more ingeniously have onia- mented their favourite works. I have seen several in the libraries of curious collectors. They are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness ; the compartments on the binding are drawn and painted, with subjects analogous to the works themselves ; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription, Jo. GrolUerii et amicorum ! — purportino- that these literary treasures were collected for himself and for his friends. The family of the Fuggers had long felt an hereditary passion for the accumulation of literary treasures ; and their portraits, with others in their picture gallery, form a curious quarto volume of 127 portraits, rare even in Germany, entitled " Fuggerorum Pinacotheca." Wolfius, who daily haunted their celebrated library, pours out his gratitude in some Greek verses, and describes tliis bibhotheque as a lite- rary heaven, furnished with as many books as there were stars in the firmament ; or as a literary garden, in which he passed entire days in gathering fruit and flowers, dehghting and instructing himself by perpetual occupation. In 1364, the royal hbrary of France did not exceed twenty volumes. Shortly after, Charles V. mcreased it to 900, which, by the fate of war, as much at least as by that of money, the LIBRARIES. 55 Duke of Bedford afterwards purchased and transported to London, where hbraries were smaller than on the contiu'-nt, about 1440. It is a circumstance worthy observation, tliat the French sovereign, Charles V. surnamed the Wise, ordered that tMrty portaljle lights, with a silver lamp suspended from the centre, should be illuminated at night, that students migl't not find their pursuits inten-upted at any hour. Many among us, at this moment, whose professional avocations admit not of moniing studies, find that the resources of a ]mblic library are not accessible to them, from the omission of the regulation of the zealous Charles V. of France. An objection to night-studies in public hbraries is the danger of fire, and in our own British Museum not a light is pennitted to be carried about on any pretence whatever. The history of the " Bibliotheque du Hoi " is a curious incident in litera- ture ; and the progress of the human mind and public opin- ion might be traced by its gradual accessions, noting the changeable qualities of its literary stores chiefly from theol- ogy, law, and medicine, to philosophy and elegant literature. It was first under Louis XIV. that the piwluctions of the art of engraving were there collected and arranged ; the great minister Colbert purchased tlie extensive collections of the Abbe de MaroUes, who may be ranked among the fathers of our print-collectors. Two hundred and sixty-four ample port- folios laid the foundations ; and the very catalogues of his collections, printed by Marolles himself, are rare and high- priced. Our own national print gallery is growing from its uifant establishment. ;Mr. Hallam has observed, that in 1440, England had made comparatively but little progress in learning — and Germany was probably still less advanced. However, in Germany, Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of Spanheira, who died in 151 G, had amassed about two thousand manuscripts ; a liter- ar}' treasure which excited such general attention that princes and eminent men travelled to visit Trithemius and his library. About this time, six or eight hundred volumes formed a royal 66 LIBRARIES. coUection, and their cost could oiilj be furnished by a prince This was indeed a great advancement in libraries, for at the begmning of the fourteenth century the hbrary of Louis IX. contanied only four classical authors ; and that of Ox- ford, in 1300, consisted of "a few tracts kept in chests." The pleasures of study are classed by Burton amon- those exercises or recreations of the mind which pass withindoors. Loolung about tliis " worid of books," he exclaims, " I could even live and die with such meditations, and take more de- light and true content of mmd in them than in aU thy wealth and sport ! There is a sweetness, wluch, as Circe's cup, be- witcheth a student : he cannot leave off, as well may witness those many laborious hours, days, and nights, spent in then- voluminous treatises. So sweet is the delight of study. The last day is prioris discipulus. Heinsius was mewed up in the hbrary of Leyden all the year long, and that which to my thinking, should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. * I no sooner,' saith he, ' come into the hbrary but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice,' and aU such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity aU our great ones and nch men, that know not this happiness.' " Such is the mcense of a votary who scatters it on the altar less for the ceremony than from the devotion. There is, however, an mtemperance m study, incompatible often with our social or more active duties. The illustrious Grotius exposed hhnself to the reproaches of some of his contemporaries for having too warmly pursued his studies, to the detriment of his public station. It was the boast of Cicero that Ins philosophical studies had never interfered with the services he owed the repubhc, and that he had only dedicated to them the hours which others give to their walks, their re- pasts, and their pleasures. Lookuig on his voluminous labours, *ve are surprised at this observation ;— how honourable is it THE BIBLIOMANIA. 57 to kim, that his various philosopliical works bear the titles of the different villas he possessed, which indicates that they were composed in these respective retirements ! Cicero must have been an early riser ; and practised that magic art in the em- plo^inent of time, which multiplies oui" days. THE BIBLIOMANIA. The preceding article is honourable to literature, yet even a passion for collecting books is not always a passion for literature. The BiBLiOJiANiA, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak minds, who imagine that they them- selves acquire knowledge when they keep it on their shelves. Their motley hbraries have been called the madhouses of the human mind; and again, the tomb of books, when the posses- Bor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of his libi-ary. It was facetiously observed, these col- lections are not without a Lock on the Human Understand- ing* The Bibliomania never raged more violently than in our own times. It is fortunate that literature is in no ways in- jured by the follies of collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily protect the good. Some collectors place all their fame on the view of a splendid library, where volumes, arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, eilk linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather, are locked up in wire cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of tlie * An allusion and pnn which occasioned the French translator of the present work an unlucky blunder: puzzled, no doubt, bj' my factliously, he translates " mettant, comrae on I'a tres-judicieiisement fait observer, I'entendement humain sous la clef." The great work and the great author alluded to, having quite escaped him 1 58 THE BIBLIOMANIA. mere reader, dazzling our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies ! La Bkuyeue has touched on this mania with humour : — " Of such a collector, as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from a strong smell of Morocco leather. In vain he shows me fine editions, gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, and naming them one 'after another, as if he were showing a gallery of pictures ! a gallery, by the by, which he seldom traverses when alone, for he rarely reads ; but me he offers to conduct through it ! I thank him for his politeness, and as little as himself care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his libi-ary." LuciAN has composed a biting invective against an igno- rant possessor of a vast library, like him, who in the present day, after turning over the pages of an old book, chiefly ad- mii-es the date. Luciax compares him to a pilot, who was never taught the science of navigation ; to a rider who cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse ; to a man who, not having the use of his feet, would conceal the defect by wearing em- broidered shoes ; but, alas ! he cannot stand in them ! He ludicrously compares him to Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step ; leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and Ids hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. AVTiy do you buy so many books ? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb ; you are bhnd, and you will have a grand mirror ; you are deaf, and you will have fine musical instruments ! Your costly bind- ings are only a source of vexation, and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving them from the silent inva^sion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of the rats ! Such collectors Avill contemptuously smile at the collection of the amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four authors, — Plato, PUny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geog- rapher. Ancillon was a gi'eat collector of curious books, and dex THE BIBLIOMANIA. 59 terously defended liimself when accused of the BihUomania. He gave a good reason for buying the most elegont editions ; which he did not consider merely as a literary luxury. The less the eyes are fatigued iu reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it : and as we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book than when in MS. ; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always purchased Jirst editions, and never waited for second ones ; though it is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has tried the sentiments of the hterary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon's plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plamly that they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge. With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened, be- sides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or makes alterations from prudential reasons ; the dis- pleasing truths which he corrects, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by Truth itself. There is an advan- tage in comparing the first with subsequent editions ; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in tracing the valua- tions of a work, after its revision. There are also other secrets, well known to the inteUigent curious, who are versed in affairs relating to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed frequently said, as is related of Virgil, " I collect gold from Ennius's dung." I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not elsewhere to be found. He read many of these, but not with equal attention — " Sicut cams ad Milum, hihens et fugiens ; " like a dog at the Nile, drinking and running. 60 LITERARY JOURNALS. Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. Students who know much, and still tliirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books ; yet in that sea they may sufi'er many shipwrecks. Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats ; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners ! LITERARY JOURNALS. When writers were not numerous, and readers rare, the unsuccessful author fell insensibly into oblivion ; he dissolved away in his own weakness. If he committed the private folly of printing what no one would pui'chase, he was not arraigned at the pubhc tribunal — and the awful terrors of his day of judgment consisted only in the retributions of his pubUsher's final accounts. At length, a taste for hterature spread through the body of the people ; vanity induced the inexperienced and the ignorant to aspu-e to literary honours. To oppose these forcible entries into the haunts of the Muses, periodical criticism brandished its formidable weapon ; and the fall of many, taught some of our greatest geniuses to rise. Multifarious writings produced multifarious strictures ; and pubUc criticism reached to such perfection, that taste was generally diffused, enlightening those whose occupations had otherwise never pennitted them to judge of literary composi- tions. The invention of Reviews, in the form which they have at length gradually assumed, could not have existed but in the most poUshed ages of hterature ; for without a constant supply of authors, and a refined spirit of criticism, they could not excite a perpetual interest among the lovers of literature. These pubUcations were long the chronicles of taste and LITERARY JOURNALS. 61 science, presenting the existing state of the public mind, while they formed a ready resource for those idle hours, which men of letters would not pass idly. Their multiphcity has undoubtedly produced much evil puerile critics and venal di'udges manufacture reviews ; hence that shameful discordance of opinion, which is the scorn and scandal of criticism. Passions hostile to the peaceful truths of literature have likewise made tremendous inroads in the republic, and every literary virtue has been lost ! In " Ca- lamities of Authors " I have given the history of a literary conspu-acy, conducted by a soUtary critic, Gilbert Stuart, against the historian Henry. These works may disgust, by vapid paneg)Tic, or gi'oss in- vective ; weary by uniform duhiess, or tantalize by super ficial knowledge. Sometimes merely written to catch the pubhc attention, a malignity is indulged against authors, to season the caustic leaves. A reviewer has admired those works in private, which he has condemned in his official capacity. But good sense, good temper, and good taste, will ever form an estimable journalist, who will inspire confidence, and give stability to his decisions. To the lovers of literature these volumes, when they have outlived their year, are not unimportant. They constitute a great portion of literary history, and are indeed the annals of the republic. To our own reviews, we must add the old foreign journals, which are perhaps even more valuable to the man of letters. Of these the variety is considerable ; and many of their wri- ters are now known. They delight our curiosity by opening new views, and light up in observing minds many projects of works, wanted in our own literature. Gibbon feasted on them ; and while he turned them over with constant pleas- ure, derived accurate notions of works, which no student could himself have verified ; of many works a notion is sufficient. The origin of literary journals was the happy project of 62 LITERARY JOURNALS. Denis de Sallo, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris. In IGGo appeared his Journal des iSgavans. He published liis essay in the name of the Sieur de Hedouville, his foot- man ! Was this a mere stroke of humour, or designed to uisinuate that the freedom of criticism could only be allowed to his lacquey ? The work, however, met with so favourable a reception, that Sallo had the satisfactipn of seeing it, the following year, imitated throughout Europe, and his Journal, at the same time, translated into various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute critic, the an- imadversions of Sallo were given with such asperity of crit- icism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary Flams ! Billevesees hebdom- adaires ! and Menage having published a law book, which Sallo had treated with severe raiUery, he entered into a long argument to prove, according to Justinian, that a lawyer is not allowed to defame another lawyer, &c. : Senatori male- dicere non licet, remaledicere jus fasque est. Others loudly declaimed against this new species of imperial tyranny, and this attempt to regulate the public opinion by that of an in- dividual. Sallo, after having published only his third volume, felt the irritated wasps of literature thronging so thick about him, that he very gladly abdicated the throne of criticism. The journal is said to have suffered a short interruption by a remonstrance from the nuncio of the pope, for the energy with which Sallo had defended the liberties of the Gallican church. Intimidated by the fate of Sallo, his successor, the Abbe Gallois, flourished in a milder reign. He contented him- self with giving the titles of books, accompanied with ex- tracts ; and he was more useful than interesting. The public, who had been so much amused by the raillery and severity of the founder of this dynasty of new critics, now LITERARY JOURNALS. Q3 murmured at the want of that salt and acidity by which they had reHshed the fugitive coHation. They were not sati.sfied with having tlie most beautiful, or the most curious parts of a new work brought together ; they wished for the unreason- able entertainment of railing and raillery. At length an- other objection was conjured up against the review ; mathe- maticians complained that they were neglected to make room for experiments in natural philosophy ; the historian sickened over works of natural history; the antiquaries would have nothing but discoveries of MSS. or fragments of antiquity. Medical works were called for by one party, and reprobated l)y another. In a word, each reader wished only to have accounts of books, which were intei-esting to his profession or his taste. But a review is a work presented to the pubUc at large, and written for more than one country. In spite of all these difficulties, this work was carried to a vast extent. An iiidex to the Journal des S^avans has been arranged on a critical plan, occupying ten volumes in quarto, which may be considered as a most useful instrument to obtain the science and hterature of the entire century. The next celebrated reviewer is I^ayle, who undertook, in lG8-i, his Nonvelles de la Republique des Lettres. He possessed the art, acquired by habit, of reading a book by his fingers, as it has been happily expressed ; and of com- prisuig, in concise extracts, a just notion of a book, without the addition of irrelevant matter. Lively, neat, and full of that attic salt which gives a relisH to the driest disquisitions, for the first time the ladies and all the beuu-moiide took an mterest in the labours of the critic. He wreathed the rod of criticism with roses. Yet even Bayle, who declared himself to be a reporter, and not a judge, Bayle, the dis- creet sceptic, could not long satisfy his readers. His pane- gyric was thought somewhat prodigal ; his fluency of style somewhat too familiar ; and others affected not to relish his gaiety. In his latter volumes, to still the clamour, he a^ssumed the cold sobriety of an historian : and has bequeathed no 64 LITERARY JOURNALS. mean legacy to the literary world, in thirty-six small volumes of criticism, closed in 1687. These were continued by Ber- nard, Avith inferior skill ; and by Basnage more successfuUy, in his Histoire des Ouvrages des S^avans. The contemporary and the antagonist of Bayle was Le Clerc. His firm industry has produced three Bibliotheques — Universelk et Historique, Ohoisie, and Anctenne et Mo- derne ; forming m aU eighty-two volumes, which, complete, bear a high price. Liferior to Bayle in the more pleasing talents, he is perhaps superior in erudition, and shows great skill in analysis : but his hand drops no floAvers ! Gibbon resorted to Le Clerc's volumes at his leisure, " as an inex- haustible source of amusement and instruction." Apostolo Zeno's Giornale dei Litterati d'lialia, from 1710 to 1733, is valuable. Beausobre and L'Enfant, two learned Protestants, wrote a Bibliotheque Germanique, from 1720 to 1740, in 50 volumes. Our own hterature is interested by the " Biblio- theque Britannique;' written by some literary Frenchmen, noticed by La Croze, in his « Voyage Litteraire," who desig- nates the writers in this most tantalizing manner : " Les auteurs sont gens de merite, et qui entendent tous parfaite- ment I'Anglois ; Messrs. S. B., le M. D., et le savant Mr. D." Posterity has been partially let into the secret: De Missy was one of the contributors, and Warburton commu- nicated his project of an edition of Velleius Paterculus. Tlois useful account of English books begins in 1733, and closes in 1747, Hague, 23 vols.: to this we must add the Journal Britmmique, m 18 vols., by Dr. Matt, a foreign physician residing in London ; this Journal exhibits a vie°w of the state of English hterature from 1750 to 1755. Gib- bon bestows a high character on the journalist, who some- times " aspires to the character of a poet and a philosopher ; one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle." Maty's son produced here a review known to the curious ; his style and decisions often discover haste and heat, with LITERARY JOURNALS. 65 6ome striking observations : alluding to his father, in hia motto, Maty applies Virgil's description of the young Ascan- ius, " Sequitur patrem non passibus a2quis." He says he only holds a monthly conversation with the public. His obstinate resolution of carrying on this review without an associate, has shown its folly and its danger ; for a fatal ilhiess produced a cessation, at once, of his periodical labours and his hfe. Other reviews,' are the Me?noires de Trevoux, written by the Jesuits. Their caustic censure and vivacity of style made them redoubtable in then' day ; they did not even spare their brothers. The Journal Litteraire, printed at the Hague, was chiefly composed by Prosper Marchand, Sallengre, and Van EiFen, who were then young writers. This list may be augmented by other journals, which some- times merit preservation in the history of modern litera- ture. Our early English journals notice only a few pubhcations, with little acumen. Of these, the " Memoirs of Literature," and the " Present State of the Republic of Letters," are the best. The Monthly Review, the venerable (now the de- ceased) mother of our journals, commenced in 1749. It is impossible to form a literary journal in a manner such as might be wished ; it must be the work of many, of differ- ent tempers and talents. An individual, however versatile and extensive his genius, would soon be exhausted. Such a regular labour occasioned Bayle a dangerous illness, and Alaty fell a victim to his Review. A prospect always ex- tending as we proceed, the frequent novelty of the matter, the pride of considering one's self as the arbiter of literature, animate a journalist at the commencement of his career ; but the literary Hercules becomes fatigued ; and to supply his craving pages he gives copious extracts, till the journal be comes tedious, or fails in variety. The Abbe Gallois was frequently diverted from continuing his journal, and Fonte- nelle remarks, that this occupation was too restrictive for a VOL. I, 6 66 LITERAEY JOURNALS. mind so extensive as his ; the Abb^ could not resist the charms of revelling in a new work, and gratifying any sud- den curiosity which seized him ; this interrupted perpetually the regularity which the public expects from a journalist. The character of a perfect journalist would be only an ideal portrait ; there are, however, some acquirements which are indispensable. He must be tolerably acquainted with the subjects he treats on ; no common acquirement ! He must possess the literary history of his oiVn times ; a science which, f'ontenelle observes, is almost distinct from any other. It is the result of an active curiosity, which takes a lively interest in the tastes and pursuits of the age, while it saves the journalist from some ridiculous blunders. We often see the mind of a reviewer half a century remote from the work reviewed. A fine feeling of the various manners of writers, with a style adapted to fix the attention of the indolent, and to win the untractable, should be his study ; but candour is the brightest gem of criticism ! He ought not to throw every thing into the crucible, nor should he suifer the whole to pass as if he trembled to touch it. Lampoons and satires in time will lose their effect, as well as panegyrics. He must learn to resist the seductions of his own pen ; the pretension of composing a treatise on the subject, rather than on the book he criticizes — proud of insinuating that he gives, in a dozen pages, what the author himself has not been able to perform in his volumes. Should he gain confidence by a popular delusion, and by unworthy conduct, he may chance to be mortified by the pardon or by the chastisement of insulted genius. The most noble criticism is that in M-hich the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author. EECOV'EKY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 67 RECOVERY OF M.\^USCRIPTS. Our ancient classics had a very narrow escape from total annihilation. Many have perished : many are but fragments ; and chance, blind arbiter of the works of genius, has left us some, not of the highest value ; which, however, have proved very useful, as a test to show the pedantry of those who adore antiquity not from true feeUng, but from traditional prejudice. We lost a great number of ancient authors, by the con- quest of Egypt by the Saracens, which deprived Europe of the use of the papyrus. They could find no substitute, and knew no other expedient but writing on parchment, which became every day more scarce and costly. Ignorance and barbarism unfortunately seized on Roman manuscripts, and industriously defaced pages once imagined to have been im- mortal ! The most elegant compositions of classic Rome were converted into the psahns of a breviary, or the prayers of a missal. Livy and Tacitus " hide their diminished heads " to preserve the legend of a saint, and immortal truths were converted into clumsy fictions. It happened that the most voluminous authors were the greatest sufferers ; these were preferred, because their volume being the greatest, most profitably repaid their destroying industry, and furnished ampler scope for future transcription. A Livy or a Diodorus was preferred to the smaller works of Cicero or Horace ; and it is to this circumstance that Juvenal, Persius, and INIartial have come down to us entire, rather probably than to these pious personages preferring their obscenities, as some have accused them. At Rome, a part of a book of Livy was found, between the lines of a parch- ment but half effaced, on which they had substituted a book of the Bible ; and a recent discovery of Cicero Be Repuhlicd, which lay concealed under some monkish writing, shows the fate of ancient manuscripts 68 KECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS. That the Monks had not in high veneration the profane authors, appears by a facetious anecdote. To read the classics was considered as a very idle recreation, and some held them in great horror. To distinguish them from other books, thej invented a disgraceful sign : when a monk asked for a pagan author, after making the general sign they used m their manual and silent language when they wanted a book, he added a particular one, which consisted in scratch- ing under his ear, as a dog, which feels an itching, scratches hunself in that place with his paw— because, said they, an unbehever is compared to a dog ! In tliis manner they expressed an itching for those dogs Vii-gil or Horace ! There have been ages when, for the possession of a manu- script, some would transfer an estate, or leave m pawn for Its loan hundreds of golden crowns ; and when even the sale or loan of a manuscript was considered of such importance as to have been solemnly registered by public acts. Abso- lute as was Louis XL he could not obtain the MS. of Rasis, an Arabian writer, from the hbrary of i\xQ Faculty of Paris,' to have a copy made, without pledging a hundred golden crowns ; and the president of his treasury, charged with this commission, sold part of his plate to make the deposit. For the loan of a volume of Avicenna, a Baron offered a pledge of ten marks of silver, which was refused : because it was not considered equal to the risk incurred of losing a volume of Avicenna ! These events occurred in 1471. One cannot but smile, at an anterior period, when a Countess of Anjou bought a favourite book of homilies for two hundred sheep, some skms of martins, and bushels of wheat and rye. In these times, manuscripts were important articles of commerce; they were excessively scarce, and preserved with the utmost care. Usurers themselves considered them as precious objects for pa^vn. A student of Pavia, who was reduced, raised a new fortune by leaving in pawn a manu- script of a body of law ; and a grammarian, who was ruined by a fire, rebuilt his house with two smaU volumes of Cicero. RECOVERY OF MAXUSCRIPTS. 69 At the restoration of letters, the researches of literary men were chiefly directed to this point ; every part of Europe and Greece was ransacked ; and, the glorious end considered, there was something sublime in this humble industry, which often recovered a lost author of antiquity, and gave one more classic to the world. This occupation was carried on with enthusiasm, and a kind of mania possessed many, who exhausted their fortunes in distant voyages and profuse prices. In reading the correspondence of the learned Italians of these times, their adventures of manuscript- hunting are very amusing ; and their raptures, their con- gratulations, or at times their condolence, and even their censures, are all immoderate. The acquisition of a province would not have given so much satisfaction as the discovery of an author little known, or not known at all. " Oh, great gain ! Oh, unexpected fehcity ! I intreat you, my Poggio, send me the manuscript as soon as possible, that I may see it before I die ! " exclaims Aretino, in a letter overflowing -with enthusiasm, on Poggio's discovery of a copy of Quintilian. Some of the half-witted, who joined in this great hunt were often thrown out, and some paid high for manuscripts not authentic ; the knave played on the bungling amateur of manuscripts, whose credulity exceeded his purse. But even among the learned, much ill blood was infliimed ; he who had been most successful in acquiring manuscripts was envied by the less fortunate, and the glory of possessing a manuscript of Cicero seemed to approximate to that of being its author. It is curious to observe that in these vast importations into Italy of manuscripts from Asia, John Aurispa, who brought many hundreds of Greek manuscripts, laments that he had chosen more profane than sacred wi-iters ; which circumstance he tells us was owing to the Greeks, who would not so easily part with theological works, but did not highly value profane Avriters ! These manuscripts were discovered in the obscurest re- cesses of monasteries ; they were not always imprisoned in libraries, but rotting in dark unfrequented corners with rub- 70 RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS. bish. It required not less ingenuity to find out places where to grope m, than to understand the vah,e of the acquisition. An universal ignorance then prevailed in the knovvled-e of ancient writers. A scholar of those times gave the first°rank r^'l ^r- ""'.'" '' '"' ^^^'"■^"^'' "'-^her he meant IMa.tial or Maximus is uncertain ; he phiced Plato and Tullv among the poets, and imagined that Ennius and Statins were contemporaries. A library of six hundred volumes was then considered as an extraordinary coUeetion. Among those whose lives were devoted to this purpose Poggio the Florentine stands distinguished; but L Lm- plains that his zeal was not assisted by the great. He found under a heap of rubbish in a decayed cofft, in a towerTe- longing to the monastery of St. Gallo, the work of Quintilian. He IS indignant at its forlorn situation ; at least, he cries, it should have been preserved in the library of the monks ; but 1 tound It tn teternmo quodam et obscuro carcere-^nd to his great joy drew it out of its grave ! The monks have been complimented as the preservers of literature, but by facts like the present, their real affection may be doubted. ' Ihe most valuable copy of Tacitus, of whom so much is wanting, was hkewise discovered in a monastery of West- phalia. It IS a curious circumstance in literary history, that ri: :: of tr: ^^^'r r ^'^^ ^^-^^^^ -^^ ^ '- ^^^ «-- emperor of that name had copies of the works of his illustrious seem fnt i '"^''" ^''^"^^^^'bed ; but the Roman libraries availed nothing against the teeth of time. The original manuscript of Justinian's Pandects was dis- covered by the Pisans, when they took a city in Calabria • hat vast code of laws had been in a manner unknown from the ime of that emperor. This curious book was brought to Pisa; and .v^ien Pisa was taken by the Florentmes, was transferred to Florence, where it is still preserved It sometimes happened that manuscripts were discovered reco\t:ry of manuscripts. 71 in the last agonies of existence. Papirius Masson found, in the house of a bookbinder of Lyons, the works of Agobart ; the mechanic was on the point of using the manuscripts to line the covers of his books. A page of the second decade of Livy, it is said, was found by a man of letters in the parchment of his battledore, while he was amusing himself in the country. He hastened to the maker of the battledore — but arrived too late ! The man had finished the last page of Livy — about a week before. INIany works have undoubtedly perished in this manuscript state. By a petition of Dr. Dee to Queen Mary, in the Cotton library, it appears that Cicero's treatise De Republicd was once extant in this country. Huet observes that Petro- nius was probably entire in the days of John of Salisbury, who quotes fragments, not now to be found in the remains of the Roman bard. Raimond Soranzo, a lawyer in the papal court, possessed two books of Cicero " on Glory," which he presented to Petrarch, who lent them to a poor aged man of letters, formerly his preceptor. Urged by extreme want, the old man pa\vned them, and returning home died suddenly without having revealed where he had left them. They have never been recovered. Petrarch speaks of them with ecstasy, and tells us that he had studied them perpetually. Two centuries afterwards, this treatise on Glory by Cicero was mentioned in a catalogue of books bequeathed to a monastery of nuns, but when inquired after was missing. It was supposed that Petrus Alcyonius, physician to that house- hold, purloined it, and after transcribing as much of it as he could into his own writings, had destroyed the original. Al- cyonius, in his book De Exilio, the critics observed, had many splendid passages which stood isolated in his work, and were quite above his genius. The beggar, or in this case the thief, was detected by mending his rags Avith patches of purple and gold. Li this age of manuscript, there is reason to believe, that when a man of letters accidentally obtained an unknown 72 KECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS. w^ork, he did not make the fau-est use of it, but cautiously concealed it from his contemporaries. Leonard Aretino, a distmguished scholar at the dawn of modern literature, having ound a Greek manuscript of Procopius De Bella Gothico translated it into Latin, and published the work ; but con- ceahng the author's name, it passed as his o^ti, till another manusenpt of the same work being dug out of its gi-ave, the fraud of Ai-etmo was apparent. Barbosa, a bishop of Ugeuto, "1 1649, has prmted among his works a treatise, obtained by one of Ins domestics bringing in a fish roUed in a leaf of writ- ten paper, which his curiosity led him to examine. He was sufficiently mterested to run out and search the fish market, ^U he found the manuscript out of which it had been torn. He published it, under the title De Officio Episcopi. Ma- chiaveUi acted more adroitly in a similar case; a manuscript of the Apoi,hthegms of the Ancients by Plutarch having faUen into his hands, he selected those which pleased him" and put them mto the mouth of his hero Castrucio Castri- cam. In more recent times, we might collect many curious anec- dotes concerning manuscript.. Sir Robert Cotton one day at his tailors discovered that the man was holding in his hand ready to cut up for measures-an original Magna Charta, with all its appendages of seals and signatures. This anecdote is told by Colomies, who long resided in this coun- ry ; and an original Magna Charta is preserved in the Cot- tonian hbrary exhibiting marks of dilapidation. Cardinal Granvelle left behind him several chests fiUed v^ith a prodigious quantity of letters written in different lan- guages, commented, noted, and underhned by his own hand. These cunous manuscripts, after his death, were left in a gan-et to the mercy of the ram and the rats. Five or six of hese chests the steward sold to the grocers. It was then that a discovery was made of this treasure. Several learned men occupied themselves in coUecting sufficient of these liter- ary rehcs to form eighty thick fohos, consisting of ori^al RKCOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 73 letters by all the crowned heads in Europe, with instructions for ambassadors, and other state-papers. A valuable secret history by Sir George Mackenzie, the king's advocate in Scotland, was rescued from a mass of waste paper sold to a grocer, who had the good sense to dis- criminate it, and communicated this curious memorial to Dr. M'Crie. The original, in the handwriting of its author, has been deposited in the Advocate's Library. There is an hiatus, which contained the history of six years. This work excited inquiry after the rest of the MSS., which were found to be nothing more than the sweepings of an attorney's office. Montaigne's Journal of his Travels into Italy has been but recently published. A prebendary of Perigord, travelling through this province to make researches relative to its his- tory, arrived at the ancient chateau of Montaigne, in posses- sion of a descendant of this great man. He inquired for the archives, if there had been any. He was shown an old worm-eaten coffer, which had long held papers untouched by the incurious generations of Montaigne. Stifled in clouds of dust, he drew out the original manuscript of the travels of Montaisme. Two thirds of the work are in the hand^^^^tino' of Montaigne, and the rest is wintten by a servant, who al- ways speaks of his master in the third person. But he must have written what Montaigne dictated, as the expressions and the egotisms are all Montaigne's. The bad writing and orthography made it almost unintelligible. They confirmed Montaigne's own observation, that he was very negligent in the correction of his works. Our ancestors were great hiders of manuscripts : Dr. Dee's singular MSS. were found in the secret drawer of a chest, which had passed through many hands undiscovered ; and that vast collection of state-papers of Thurloe's, the secretary of Cromwell, which formed about seventy volumes in the original manuscripts, accidentally fell out of the false ceiling of some chambers in Lincoln's-Inn. A considerable portion of Lady Mary TVortley Montagu's 74 SKETCHES OF CRITICISM. Letters I discovei-ed in the hands of an attorney : family- papers are often consigned to offices of lawyers, where many valuable manuscripts are buried. Posthumous publications of this kind are too frequently made from sordid motives: discernment and taste would only be detrimental to the views of bulky publishers. SKETCHES OF CRITICISM. It may, perhaps, be some satisfaction to show the young writer, that the most celebrated ancients have been as rudely subjected to the tyranny of criticism as the moderns. De- traction has ever poured the " waters of bitterness." It was given out, that Homer had stolen from anterior poets whatever was most remarkable in the Iliad and Odys- sey. Naucrates even points out the source in the library at Memplus in a temple of Vulcan, which accoi'ding to him the blind bard completely pillaged. Undoubtedly there were good poets before Homer ; how absurd to conceive that an elaborate poem could be the first ! We have mdeed accounts of anterior poets, and apparently of epics, before Homer ; ^lian notices Syagrus, who composed a poem on the Siege of Troy ; and Suidas the poem of Corinnus, from which it is said Homer gi-eatly borrowed. Why did Plato so severely condemn the great bard, and imitate him ? Sophocles was brought to trial by his children as a lunatic ; and some, who censured the inequalities of this poet, have also condemned the vanity of Pindar ; the rough verses of ^schylus ; and Euripides, for the conduct of his plots. Socrates, considered as the wisest and the most moral of men, Cicero treated as an usurer, and the pedant Athenteus as illiterate ; the latter points out as a Socratic folly our phi- losopher disserting on the nature of justice before his judges, who were so many thieves. The malignant buffoonery of SKETCHES OF CRITICISM. 75 Aristophanes treats him much worse ; but he, as Jortin says, was a great wit, but a great rascal. Plato — who has been called, by Clement of Alexandria, the Moses of Athens ; the philosopher of the Christians, by Arnobius ; and the god of philosophers, by Cicero — Athe- nieus accuses of envy ; Theopompus, of lying ; Suidas, of avarice ; Aulus Gellius, of robbery ; Porphyry, of incon- tinence ; and Ai'istophanes, of impiety. Aristotle, whose industry composed more than four hun- dred volumes, has not been less spared by the critics ; Diog- enes Laertius, Cicero, and Plutarch, have forgotten nothing that can tend to show his ignorance, his ambition, and his vanity. It has been said that Plato was so envious of the celebrity of Democritus, that he proposed burning all his works ; but that Araydis and Clinias pi-evented it, by remonstrating that there were copies of them everywhere ; and Aristotle was agitated by the same passion against all the philosophers his predecessors. Virgil is destitute of invention, if we are to give credit to Pliny, Carbilius, and Seneca. Caligula has absolutely de- nied him even mediocrity ; Herennus has marked his faults ; and Perilius Faustinus has furnished a thick volume with his plagiarisms. Even the author of his apology has con- fessed, that he has stolen from Homer his greatest beauties ; from ApoUonius Rhodius, many of his pathetic passages ; from Nicander, hints for his Georgics ; and this does not ter- minate the catalogue. Horace censures the coarse humour of Plautus ; and Horace, in his turn, has been blamed for the free use he made of the Greek minor poets. The majority of the critics regard Pliny's Natural History only as a heap of fables ; and Pliny cannot bear with Diodo- nis and Vopiscus ; and in one comprehensive criticism, treats all the historians as narrators of fables. Livy has been reproached for his aversion to the Gauls ; 7g SKETCHES OF CPJTKIISM. Dion, for his hatred of the republic ; Velleius Paterculus, for speaking too kindly of the vices of Tiberius ; and Herod- otus and Plutarch, for their excessive partiality to their own country : while the latter has written an entire treatise on the malignity of Herodotus. Xenophon and Quintus Curtius have been considered rather as novelists than historians ; and Tacitus has been censured for liis audacity m pretending to discover the political springs and secret causes of events. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has made an elaborate attack on Thucydides for the unskilful choice of his subject, and his manner of treating it. Dionysius would have nothing written but what tended to the glory of his country and the pleasure of the reader — as if history were a song ! adds Hobbes, who also shows a personal motive in this attack. The same Dio- nysius severely criticizes the style of Xenophon, who, he says, in attempting to elevate his style, shows himself inca- pable of supporting it. Polybius has been blamed for his frequent introduction of reflections, which interrupt the thread of his narrative ; and Sallust has been blamed by Cato for indulging his own private passions, and studiously concealing many of the glorious actions of Cicero. The Jewish historian Josephus is accused of not having designed his liistory for his own people so much as for the Greeks and Romans, whom he takes the utmost care never to offend. Josephus assumes a Roman name, Flavius ; and considering his nation as entirely subjugated, to make them appear dig- nified to their conquerors, alters what he hhnself calls the Holy hooks. It is well known how widely he differs from the S3i-iptural accounts. Some have said of Cicero, that there is no connection, and to adopt their own figures, no blood and nerves, in what his admirers so warmly extol. Cold in his extemporaneous effusions, artificial in his exordiums, trifling m his strained raillery, and tiresome m his digressions. This is saying a good deal about Cicero. Quintihan does not spare Seneca ; and Demosthenes, called by Cicero the prince of orators, has, according to Hermippus, SKETCHES OF CRITICISM. 77 more of art than of nature. To Demades, his orations ap- pear too much laboured ; others have thought him too dry and, if we may trust ^schines, his language is by no means pure. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, and the Deipnosophists of Athenceus, while they have been extolled by one party, Lave been degraded by another. They have been considered as botchers of rags and remnants ; their diligence has not been accompanied by judgment ; and their taste inclined more to the frivolous than to the useful. Compilers, indeed, are liable to a hard fate, for httle distinction is made in their ranks ; a disagreeable situation, in which honest Burton seems to have been placed ; for he says of his work, that some will cry out, " This is a thinge of meere Industrie ; a collection wthout wit or invention ; a very toy ! So men are valued ; their labours vilified by fellowes of no worth themselves, as things of nought : Who could not have done as much ? Some understande too little, and some too much." Should we proceed with this list to our own country, and to our own times, it might be curiously augmented, and show the world what men the Critics are ! but, perhaps, enough has been said to soothe irritated genius, and to shame fastid- ious criticism. " I would beg the critics to remember," the Earl of Roscommon writes, in his preface to Horace's Art of Poetry, " that Horace owed his favour and his fortune to the character given of him by Virgil and Varus ; that Fun- danius and Pollio are still valued by what Horace says of them ; and that, in their golden age, there was a good under- standing among the ingenious ; and those who were the most esteemed, were the best natured." 78 THE PERSECUTED LEARNED. THE PERSECUTED LEARNED. Those who have laboured most zealously to instruct man- kind have been those who have suffered most from ignorance ; and the discoverers of new arts and sciences have hardly ever lived to see them accepted by the world. With a noble perception of his own genius, Lord Bacon, in his prophetic Will, thus expresses himself : " For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign na- tions, and the next ages." Before the times of Galileo and Harvey the world believed in the stagnation of the blood, and the diurnal immovability of the earth ; and for denying these the one was persecuted and the other ridiculed. The intelligence and the virtue of Socrates were punished with death. Anaxagoras, when he attempted to propagate a just notion of the Supreme Being, was dragged to prison. Ai-istotle, after a long series of persecution, swallowed poison. Heraclitus, tormented by his countrymen, broke off all inter- course with men. The . great geometricians and chemists, as Gerbert, Roger Bacon, and Cornelius Agrippa, were abhorred as magicians. Pope Gerbert, as Bishop Otho gravely re- lates, obtained the pontificate by having given himself up en- tirely to the devil : others suspected him, too, of holding an intercourse with demons ; but this was indeed a devilish age! Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburg, having asserted that there existed antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a heretic ; and the Abbot Trithemius, who was Ibnd of im- proving stenography, or the art of secret writing, having published several curious works on this subject, they were condemned, as works full of diabolical mysteries ; and Frederic II., Ele(;tor Palatine, ordered Trithemius's orig- mal work, v/hich was in his library, to be publicly burnt. Galileo was condemned at Rome publicly to disavow sen- timents, the truth of which must have been to him abundant- THE PERSECUTED LEARNED. 79 \y manifest. " Are these then my judges ? " he exclaiinetl in retiring from the inquisitors, whose ignorance astonished him. He was imprisoned, and visited by Mihon, who tells us, he was then poor and old. The confessor of his widow, taking advantage of her piety, perused the MSS. of this great philosopher, and destroyed such as in his judgment were not fit to be known to the world ! Gabriel Naude, in his apology for those gi-eat men v.Uo have been accused of magic, has recorded a melancholy number of the most eminent scholai-s, who have found, that to have been successful in their studies was a success which harassed them with continual persecution — a prison or a grave ! Cornelius Agrippa was compelled to fly his countr}', and the enjoyment of a large income, merely for having dis])layed a few philosophical experiments, which now every school-boy can perform ; but more particularly having attacked the then prevailmg opinion, that St. Anne had three husbands, he was obhged to fly from place to place. The people beheld him as an object of horror ; and when he walked he found the streets empty at his approach. In those times it was a common opinion to suspect every great man of an intercourse with some familiar spirit. The favourite black dog of Agrippa was supposed to be a demon. When Urban Grandier, another victim to the age, was led to the stake, a large fly settled on his head : a monk, who had heard that Beelzebub signifies in Hebrew the God of Flies, reported that he saw this spirit come to take possession of him. M. de Langier, a French minister, who employed many spies, Avas frequently accused of diabolical communi- cation. Sixtus the Fifth, Marechal Faber, Roger Bacon, Cajsar Borgia, his son Alexander VI., and others^, like Socrates, had their diabolical attendant. Cardan was believed to be a magician. An able naturalist, who happened to know something of the arcana of nature, was immediately susjx'Cted of magic. Even the learned 80 THE PERSECUTED LEARNED themselves, who had not applied to natural philosophy, seem to have acted with the same feelings as the most ignorant ; for when Albert, usually called the Great, an epithet it has been said that he derived from his name De Groot, con- structed a curious piece of mechanism, which sent forth distinct vocal sounds, Thomas Aquinas was so much terri- fied at it, that he struck- it with his staff, and to the mor- tification of Albert, anniliilated the curious labour of thirty years ! Petrarch was less desirous of the laurel for the honour, than for the hope of being sheltered by it fi'om the thunder of the priests, by whom both he and his brother poets were continually threatened. They could not imagine a poet, without supposing him to hold an intercourse with some demon. This was, as Abbe Resnel observes, having a most exalted idea of poetry, though a very bad one of poets. An anti-poetic Dominican was notorious for persecuting all verse- makers ; whose power he attributed to the effects of heresy and magic. The lights of philosophy have dispersed all these accusations of magic, and have shown a dreadful chain of perjuries and conspiracies. Descartes was horribly persecuted in Holland, when he first pubUshed his opinions. Voetius, a bigot of great in- fluence at Utrecht, accused him of atheism, and had even projected in his mind to have this philosopher burnt at Utrecht in an extraordinary fire, which, kindled on an eminence, might be observed by the seven pro\^nces. JVIr. Hallam has observed, that " the ordeal of fire was the great purifier of books and men." This persecution of science and genius lasted till the close of the seventeenth century. " If the metaphysician stood a chance of being burnt as a heretic, the natural philosopher was not in less jeopai-dy as a magician," is an observation of the same writer, which sums up the whole. POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. 81 POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. Fortune has rarely condescende 1 to be the companion of genius : others find a hundred by-roads to her palace ; there is but one open, and that a very indifferent one, for men of letters. Were we to erect an asylum for venerable geniu-j, as we do for the brave and the helpless part of our citizens, it might be inscribed, " An Hospital for Incurables ! " When even Fame will not protect the man of genius from Famine, Charity ought. Nor should such an act be considered as a debt incurred by the helpless member, but a just tribute we pay in his person to Genius itself. Even in these enlightened times, many have lived in obscurity, while their reputation was widely spread, and have perished in poverty, while their works were enrichins: the booksellers. Of the heroes of modem literature the accounts are as copious as they are sorrowful. Xylander sold liis notes on Dion Cassius for a dinner. He tells us that at the age of eighteen he studied to acquire glory, but at twenty-five he studied to get bread. Cervantes, the immortal genius of Spain, is supposed to have wanted food ; Camoens, the solitary pride of Portugal, deprived of the necessaries of hfe, perished in an hospital at Lisbon. This fact has been accidentally preserved in an entry in a copy of the first edition of the Lusiad, in the possession of Lord Holland. It is a note, written by a friar who must have been a witness of the dying scene of the poet, and probably received the volume which now preserves the sad m ^morial, and which recalled it to his mind, from the hands of the unhappy poet : " What a lamentable thing to see so great a genius so iU rewarded ! I saw him die in an hospital in Lisbon, without having a sheet or shroud, una sauana, to cover him, after having triumphed in the East Indies, and sailed 5500 leagues ! What good advice for those who weary themselves night and day in study without VOL. I. 6 y2 POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. profit!" Camoens, when some fidalgo complained that he had not performed his promise in writing some verses for him, repUed, " When I wrote verses I was young, had suf- licient food, was a lover, and beloved by many fiiends and by the ladies ; then I felt poetical ardour : now I have no spirits, no peace of mind. See there my Javanese, who asks me for two pieces to purchase tiring, and I have them not to give him." The Portuguese, after liis death, bestowed on the man of genius they had starved, the appellation of Great ! Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, after composing a number of popular tragedies, lived in great poverty, and died at ninety years of age ; then he had Iiis coffin carried by fourteen poets, who without his genius probably partook of his wretchedness. The great Tasso was reduced to such a dilemma that he was obliged to borrow a crown for a week's subsistence. He alludes to his distress when, entreating his cat to assist him, during the niglit, with the lustre of her eyes — " Non avendo candele per iscrivere i suoi versi ! " having no candle to see to write his verses. When the liberality of Alphonso enabled Ariosto to build a small house, it seems that it was but ill furnished. When told that such a building was not fit for one who had raised so many fine palaces in his writings, he answered, that the structure of words and that of stones was not the same thing. " Che porvi le pietre, e porvi le parole, non e il medesimo!" At Ferrara this house is stiU shown. " Parva sed apta," ho calls it, but exults that it was paid for with his o"\vn money. This was in a moment of good humour, wliich he did not always enjoy; for in liis Satires he bitterly complains of the bondage of dependence and poverty. Little thought the poet that the commune would order this smaU house to be pur- chased with their own funds, that it might be dedicated to his immortal memory. Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ornament of Italy and of litera- ture, languished, in his old age, in the most distressful pov- POVERTY OF TIIE LEARNED. 83 ertj ; and having sold his palace to satisfy his creditors, left nothing behind him but his reputation. The learned I'om- ponius Lajtus hved in such a state of poverty, that his friend Platina, who wrote the lives of the popes, and also a book of cookery, introduces liim into the cookery book by a facetious observation, that " If Pomponius La?tus sliould be robbed of a couple of eggs, he would not have wheremthal to purchase two other eggs." The history of Aldrovandus is noble and pathetic ; having expended a large fortune in fonning his collections of natural history, and employing the first artists in Europe, he w-as suffered to die in the hospital of that city, to whose fame he had eminently contributed. Du Ryer, a celebrated French poet, was constrained to write with rapidity, and to live in the cottage of an obscure village. His bookseller bought his heroic verses for one hundred sols the hundred lines, and the smaller ones for fifty sols. What an interesting picture has a contemporary given of a visit to this poor and ingenious author ! " On a fine summer day we went to him, at some distance from town. He received us with joy, talked to us of his numerous projects, and showed us several of his works. But what more interested us was, that, though dreading to expose to us his poverty, he contrived to offer some refreshments. Vfe seated ourselves under a wide oak, the table-cloth was spread on the grass, liis wife brought us some milk, with fresh water and brown bread, and he picked a basket of cherries. He welcomed us mth gaiety, but we could not take leave of this amiable man, now grown old, without tears, to see him so ill treated by fortune, and to have nothing left but literary honour ! " Vaugelas, the most polished writer of the French language, who devoted thu-ty years to his translation of Quintus Cur- tius, (a circumstance which modern translators can have no conception of,) died possessed of nothing valuable but his precious manuscripts. This ingenious scholar left his corpse to the surgeons, for the benefit of his creditors ! 84 POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. ^ Louis the Fourteenth honoured Racine and Mean with a private monthly audience. One day the king asked what there was new in the hterary world. Racine answered, that he had seen a melancholy spectacle in the hou.>e of Con.eille, Avhom he found dying, deprived even of a little broth ! The king preserved a profound silence ; and sent the dying poet a sum of money. Dryden, for less than three hundred pounds, sold Tonson ten thousand verses, as may be seen by the agreement. Purchas, who, in the reign of our first James, had spent his hfe in compilmg his Ilelation of the World, when he gave it to the pubhc, for the reward of his laboui-s was thi-ownlnto prison, at the suit of his printer. Yet this was the book winch, he hiforms Charles I. in liis dedication, his father read every night with great profit and satisfaction. The Marquis of AYorcester, in a petition to parliament, in the reign of Charles IL, offered to publish the hundred pro- cesses and machines, enumerated in his very curious " Cen- tenary of Inventions," on condition that money should be granted to extricate him from the difficulties in which he had involved himself, hy the prosecution of useful discoveries. The petition does not appear to have been attended to! Many of these admirable inventions were lost. The steam engine and the telegraph may be traced among them. It appears by the Harieian MS. 7524, that Rushworth, the author of the "Historical Collections," passed the last years of his hfe in jail, where indeed he died. After the Restora- tion, when he presented to the king several of the priw council's books, which he had preserved from ruin, he re- ceived for his only reward the thanks of his majesty. ' RjTner, the Collector of the Foedera, must have been sadly reduced, by the foUowing letter, I found addressed by Peter le Neve, Norroy, to the Eari of Oxford. " I am desired by Mr. RjTner, historiographer, to lay be- fore your lordship the circumstances of his affairs. He was forced some yeiirs back to part with aU his choice printed POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. 85 books to subsist himself: and now, he says, he must be forced, for subsistence, to sell all his MS. collections to the best bid- der, without your lordship will be pleased to buy them for the queen's library. They are fifty volumes in folio, of public affairs, which he hath collected, but not prmted. The price he asks is five hundred pounds." Simon Ockley, a learned student in Oriental literature, addresses a letter to the same earl, in which he paints his distresses in glowing colours. After having devoted his life to Asiatic researches, then very uncommon, he had the mor- tification of dating his preface to his great work from Cam- bridge Castle, where he was confined for debt ; and, with an air of triumph, feels a martyr's enthusiasm in the cause for which he perishes. He published his first volume of the History of the Sara- cens, in 1708 ; and, ardently pursuing his oriental studies, published his second, ten years afterwards, without any patronage. Alluding to the encouragement necessary to bestow on youth, to remove the obstacles to such studies, he observes, that " young men will hardly come in on the pros- pect of finding leisure, in a prison, to transcribe those papers for the press, which they have collected with indefatigable labour, and oftentimes at the expense of their rest, and all the other conveniences of life, for the service of the public. No ! though I were to assure them, from my own experience, that / have enjoyed more true liberty, more happy leisure, and more solid repose, in six months here, than in thnce the same number of years before. Evil is the condition of that historian who undertaJces to write the lives of others before he knows how to live himself — Not that I speak thus as if I thought I had any just cause to be angry with the world — I did always in my judgment give the possession of wisdom the preference to that of riches ! " Spenser, the child of Fancy, languished out his life in misery. " Lord Burleigh," says Granger, " who it is said prevented the queen giving him a hundred pounds, seems to 86 POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. have thought the lowest clerk in his office a more deserving person." Mr. Malone attempts to show that Spenser had a small pension ; but the poet's querulous verses must not be forgotten — " Full little knowest thou, that hast not tiy'd What Hell it is, in suing long to bide." To lose good days — to waste long nights — and, as he feel- ingly exclaims, " To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To speed, to give, to want, to be undone ! " How affecting is the death of Sydenham, who had devoted his life to a laborious version of Plato ! He died in a spung- ing house, and it was his death which appears to have given rise to the Literary Fund " for the relief of distressed au- thors." Who will pursue important labours when they read these anecdotes ? Dr. Edmund Castell spent a great part of his life in compiling his Lexicon Heptaglotton, on which he be- stowed incredible pains, and expended on it no less than 12,000/., broke his constitution, and exhausted his fortune. At length it was printed, but the copies remained unsold on his hands. He exhibits a curious picture of literary labour in his preface. " As for myself, I have been unceasingly occupied for such a number of years in this mass," Molen- dino he calls them, " that that day seemed, as it were, a holiday in which I have not laboured so much as sixteen or eighteen hours in these enlarging lexicons and Polyglot Bibles." Le Sage resided in a little cottage while he supplied the world with their most agreeable novels, and appears to have derived the sources of his existence in his old age from the filial exertions of an excellent son, who was an actor of some genius. I wish, however, that every man of letters could apply to himself the epitaph of this delightful writer : — mPEISONMENT OF THE LEARNED. 87 Sous ce tombeau git Le Sage, abatta Par le eiseau de la Parque importune; S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortune, H fut toujours ami de la vertu. Many years after this article had been written, I pub- lished " Calamities of Authors," confining myself to those of our own country ; the catalogue is incomplete, but far too numerous. IMPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED. Imprisonment has not always disturbed the man of letters in the progress of his studies, but has unquestionably greatly promoted them. In prison Boethius composed liis work on the Consolations of Philosophy ; and Grotius wrote his Commentary on Saint Matthew, with other works ; the detail of his allotment of time to different studies, during his confinement, is very in- structive. Buchanan, in the dungeon of a monastery in Portugal composed his excellent Paraphrases of the Psalms of David. Cervantes composed the most agreeable book in the Span- ish language during his captivity in Barbary. Fleta, a well-known law production, was written by a per- son confined in the Fleet for debt ; the name of the place, though not that of the author, has thus been preserved ; and another work, " Fleta IMinor, or the Laws of Art and Nature hi knowing the bodies of Metals, &c. by Sir John Pettus, 1683 ; " received its title from the circumstance of his having translated it from the German durinfr his confinement in this prison. Louis the Twelfth, when Duke of Orleans, was long im- prisoned in the Tower of Bourges : applying himself to his Btudies, which he had hitherto neglected, he became, in con- sequence, an enlightened monarch. 88 BIPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED. Margaret, queen of Henry the Fourth, King of France confined in the Louvre, pursued very warmly tlie studies of elegant hterature, and composed a very skilful apology for the irregularities of her conduct. Sir Walter Raleigh's unfinished History of the World, which leaves us to regret that later ages had not been cele- brated by his eloquence, was the fruits of eleven years of imprisonment. It was written for the use of Prince Henry, as he and Dallington, who also wrote "Aphorisms " for the same prince, have told us ; the prince looked over the manu script. Of Raleigh it is observed, to employ the language of Hume, " They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated amidst naval and military enter- prises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of hterature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary Hves ; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at liis age, and under his circumstances, could engage liim to undertake and execute so great a work, as his History of the World." He was assisted m this great work by the learning of several eminent per- sons, a circumstance which has not been usually noticed. The plan of the " Henriade " was sketched, and the greater part composed, by Yohaire durmg his imprisonment in the Bastile ; and " the Pilgrun's Progress " of Bunyan was per- formed m tlie circuit of a prison's walls. Howell, the author of " FamiUar Letters," wrote the chief part of them, and almost all his other works, during his long confinement in the Fleet prison ; he employed his fertile pen for subsistence ; and in all his books we find much entertain- ment. * Lydiat, while confined in the Kmg's Bench for debt, wrote his Annotations on the Parian Chronicle, which were first published by Prideaux. He was the learned scholar alluded to by Johnson ; an allusion not kno^vn to Boswell and others. The learned Selden, committed to prison for his attacks on the divine right of tithes and the king's prerogative, prepared during his confinement his " History of Eadmer," enriched by his notes. IMPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED. 89 Cardinal Poliguac formed the design of refuting the argu- ments of the skeptics which Bayle had been renewing in hia dictionary ; but his pubHc occupations hindered him. Two exiles at length fortunately gave him the leisure ; and the Anti-Lucretius is the fruit of the court di.-graces of its author. Freret, when imprisoned in the Bastile, was jjermitted only to have Bayle for his companion. His dictionary was always before him, and his principles were got by heart. To this circumstance we owe Iiis works, animated by all the powers of skepticism. Sir William Davenant finished liis poem of Gondibert during his confinement by the rebels in Carisbrook Castle. George Wither dedicates his " Shepherd's Hunting," " To his friends, my visitants in the Marshalsea : " these " eclogues " having been printed in his imprisonment. De Foe, confined in Newgate for a pohtical pamphlet, began his " Eeview ; " a periodical paper, which was ex- tended to nine thick volumes in quarto, and it has been sup- posed served as the model of the celebrated papers of Steele. Wicquefort's curious work " on Ambassadors " is dated from his prison, where he had been confined for state affairs. He softened the rigour of those heavy hours by several historical works. One of the most interesting facts of this kind is the fate of an Italian scholar, of the name of Maggi. Early addicted to the study of the sciences, and particularly to the mathematics, and military architecture, he successfully defended Fama- gusta, besieged by the Turks, by inventing machines which destroyed their woi'ks. When that city was taken in 1571, they pillaged his hbrary and carried him away in chains. Kow a slave, after his daily labours he amused a great part of his nights by literary compositions ; De Tintinnabulis, on Bells, a treatise still read by the curious, was actually com- posed by him when a slave in Turkey, without any other resource than the erudition of his oa^ti memory, and the genius of which adversity could not deprive him. 90 AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED. AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED. Among the Jesuits it was a standing rule of the order that after an application to study for two hours, the mind of the student should be unbent by some relaxation, however triiling. When Petavius was employed in his Dogmata Theologica, a work of the most profound and extensive erudition, the great recreation of the learned father was, at the end of every second hour, to twirl his chair for five minutes'. After protracted studies Spinosa would mix with the family-party where he lodged, and join in the most triv- ial conversations, or unbend his mind by setting spiders to fight each other ; he observed their combats with so much interest, that he was often seized with immoderate fits of laughter. A continuity of labour deadens the soul, observes Seneca, in closing liis treatise on " The Tranquillity of the Soul," and the mind must unbend itself by certain amuse- ments. Socrates did not blush to play with children ; Cato, over his bottle, found an alleviation from the fatigues of gov- ernment ; a circumstance, Seneca says in his manner, which rather gives honour to this defect, than the defect dishonours Cato. Some men of letters portioned out their day between repose and labour. Asinius Pollio would not suffer any business to occupy him beyond a stated hour; after that time he would not allow any letter to be opened, that his hours of recreation might not be interrupted by unforeseen labours. In the senate, after the tenth hour, it was not allowed to make any new motion. Tycho Brahe diverted himself with polishing glasses for all kinds of spectacles, and making mathematical instruments ; an employment too closely connected with his studies to be deemed an amusement. DAndilly, the translator of Josephus, after seven or eight hours of study every day, amused himself in cultivating trees ; Barclay, the author of the Argenis, in his leisure hours was AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED. 91 a florist ; Balzac amused himself with a collection of crayon portraits ; Peiresc found his amusement amongst his medals and antiquarian curiosities ; the Abbe de Marolles with his prints ; and Politian in singing airs to his lute. Descartes passed his afternoons in the conversation of a few friends, and in cultivating a little garden ; in the morning, occupied by the system of the world, he relaxed liis profound speculations by rearing delicate flowers. Conrad ab Uffenbach, a learned German, recreated his mind, after severe studies, with a collection of prints of em- inent persons, methodically arranged ; he retained this ardour of the Grangerite to his last days. Rohault wandered from shop to shop to observe the me- chanics labour ; Count Caylus passed his mornings in the studios of artists, and his evenings in "\\Titing his numerous works on art. This was the true life of an amateur. Granville Sharpe, amidst the severity of his studies, found a social relaxation in the amusement of a barge on the Thames, which was well known to the circle of his friends ; there, was festive hospitality with musical delight. It was resorted to by men of the most eminent talents and rank. His httle voyages to Putney, to Kew, and to Richmond, and the literary intercourse they produced, were singularly happy ones. " The history cf his amusements cannot be told with- out adding to the dignity of his character," observes Prince Hoare, in the life of this great philanthropist. Some have found amusement in composing treatises on odd subjects. Seneca wrote a burlesque narrative of Claudian'g death. Pierius Valerianus has written an eulogium on beards ; and we have had a learned one recently, with due gravity and pleasantry, entitled " Eloge de Perruques." Holstein has written an eulogium on the North "Wind; Heinsius, on " the Ass ; " Menage, " the Transmigration of the Parasitical Pedant to a Parrot;" and also the *' Petition of the Dictionaries." Erasmus composed, to amuse himself when travelling, his 92 AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED. panegyric on Moria, or Follj ; which, authorized by the pun, he dedicated to Sir Thomas More. Sallengre, who would amuse himself like Erasmus, wrote, in imitation of liis work, a panegyric on Ehriety. He says, that lie is willing to be thought as drunken a man as Erasmus was a foolish one. Synesius composed a Greek panegyric on Baldness. These burlesques were brought into great \'ogue by Erasmus's Iloriee Eiicomium. It seems, Johnson observes in his life of Sir Thomas Browne, to have been in aU ages the pride of art to show how it could exalt the low and amplify the httle. To this ambition perhaps we owe the Frogs of Homer ; the Gnat and the Bees of VirgU; the Butterfly of Spenser; the Shadow of WoAverus ; and the Quincunx of BrowTie. Cardinal de Richeheu, amongst aU Ids great occupations, found a recreation in violent exercises ; and he was once dis- covered jumping with his servant, to try who could reach the highest side of a wall. De Grammont, observing the cardi- nal to be jealous of his powers, offered to jump with him ; alid, in the true sph-it of a courtier, having made some efforts which nearly reached the cardinal's, confessed the cardinal surpassed him. This was jumping like a pohtician ; and by this means he is said to have ingratiated hunself with the minister. The great Samuel Clarke was fond of robust exercise ; and tliis profound logician has been found leaping over tables and chairs. Once perceiving a pedantic fellow, he said, " Now we must desist, for a fool is coming in ! " An eminent French lawyer, confined by hil business to a Parisian hfe, amused hunself with coUecting from the classics aU the passages which relate to a country Hfe. The coUec- tion was pubhshed after Ids death. Contemplative men seem to be fond of amusements which accord with their habits. The thoughtful game of chess, and the tranquil delight of angling, have been favourite recre- ations with the studious. Paley had himself painted with a AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED. 93 rod and line in his hand ; a strange characteristic for the author of " Natural Theology." Sir Henry "VVotton called angling " idle time not idly spent : " we may suppose that his meditations and his amusements were carried on at the same moment. The amusements of the great d'Aguesseau, chancellor of France, consisted in an interchange of studies ; his relax- ations were all the varieties of literature. " Le changement de I'etude est mon seul delassement," said this great man ; and " in the age of the passions, his only passion was study." Seneca has observed on amusements proper for literary men, that, in regard to robust exercises, it is not decent to see a man of letters exult in the strength of his arm, or the breadth of his back ! Such amusements diminish the activity of the mind. Too much fatigue exhausts the animal spirits, as too much food blunts the finer faculties : but elsewhere he allows his philosopher an occasional slight inel)riation ; an amusement which was very prevalent among our poets formerly, when they exclaimed, Fetch me Ben Jonson's scull, and fiU't with sack, Rich as the same he drank, when the whole pack Of jolly sisters pledged, and did agree It was no sin to be as dmnk as he ! Seneca concludes admirablv, " whatever be the amuse- ments you choose, return not slowly from those of the body to the mind ; exercise the latter night and day. The mind is nourished at a cheap rate ; neither cold nor heat, nor age itself, can interrupt this exercise ; give therefore all your cares to a possession which ameliorates even in its old age!"_ An ingenious writer has observed, that " a garden just accommodates itself to the perambulations of a scholar, who would perhaps rather wish his walks abridged than ex- tended." There is a good characteristic accoimt of the mode in which the Literati may taJse exercise, in FopeV 94 PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS. Letters. " I, like a poor squirrel, am continually in motion indeed, but it is but a cage of three foot ! my little excursions are like those of a shopkeeper, who walks every day a mile or two before his own door, but minds his business all the while." A turn or two in a garden will often very happily close a fine period, mature an unrij)ened thought, and raise up fresh associations, whenever the mind like the body becomes rigid b}' preserving the same posture. Buffon often quitted the old tower he studied in, which was placed in the midst of his garden, for a walk in it ; Eveljii loved " books and a garden." PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS. With the ancients, it was undoubtedly a custom to place the portraits of authors before their works. Martial's 18Gth epigram of his fourteenth book is a mere play on words, con- cerning a little volume containing the works of VirgU, and which had his portrait prefixed to it. The volume and the characters must have been very diminutive. Quam brevis {mmensvm cepit membrana Maronem ! Ipdus Vultus prima tabella gerii. Martial is not the only waiter who takes notice of the ancients prefixing portraits to the works of authors. Seneca, in his ninth chapter on the Tranquillity of the Soul, com- plains of many of the luxurious great, who, like so many of our own collectors, possessed hbraries as they did their es- tates and equipages. " It is melancholy to observe how the portraits of men of genius, and the works of their divine intelligence, are used only as the luxury and the ornaments of walls." Pliny has nearly the same observation, lih. xxxv. cap. 2. He remarks, that the custom was rather modern in his time ; and attributes to Asinius PoUio the honour of having intro- PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS. 95 duced it into Rome. " In consecrating a library with the portraits of our ilkistrious authors, he has formed, if I may so express myself, a republic of the intellectual powers of men." To the richness of book-treasures, Asinius PoUio had associated a new source of pleasure, in placing the statues of their authors amidst them, inspiring the minds of the spec • tators even by tlieir eyes. A taste for collecting portraits, or busts, was warmly pur- sued in the happier periods of Rome ; for the celebrated Atticus, in a work he published of illustrious Romans, made it more delightful, by ornamenting it with the poi-traits of those great men ; and the learned Varro, in his biography of Seven Hundred celebrated Men, by giving the world their true features and their physiognomy in some manner, allquo modo imaginibus is Pliny's expression, showed that even their persons should not entirely be annihilated ; they indeed, adds Pliny, form a spectacle which the gods themselves might contemplate ; for if the gods sent those heroes to the earth, it is Varro who secured their immortality, and has so multi- plied and distributed them in all places, that we may carry them about us, place them wherever we choose, and fix our eyes on them with perpetual admiration. A spectacle that every day becomes more varied and interesting, as new heroes appear, and as works of this kind are spread abroad. But as printing was unknown to the ancients (though stamping an iinpression was daily practised, and, in fact, they possessed the art of printing without being aware of it), how were these portraits of Varro so easily propagated ? If copied with a pen, their correctness was in some danger, and their diffusion must have been very confined and slow ; per- haps they were outlines. This passage of Pliny excites curiosity difficult to satisfy ; I have in vain inquired of sev- eral scholars, particularly of the late Grecian, Dr. Burney. A collection of the portraits of illustrious characters, affords not only a source of entertainment and curiosity, but dis- plays the different modes or habits of the time ; and in set- 96 PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS. tling our floating ideas upon the true features of famous persons, they also fix the chronological particulars of their bu-th, age, death, sometimes with short characters of them, besides the names of painter and engraver. It is thus a single print, by the hand of a sldlful artist, may become a varied banquet. To this Granger adds, that in a collection of engraved portraits, the contents of many galleries are reduced into the narrow compass of a few volumes ; and the portraits of eminent persons, who distinguished themselves tlu'ough a long succession of ages, may be turned over in a few hours. " Another advantage," Granger continues, " attending such an assemblage is, that the methodical arrangement has a surpx'ising effect upon the memory. - "We see the celebrated contemporaries of every age almost at one view ; and the mind is insensibly led to the history of that period. I may add to these, an important circumstance, which is, the power that such a collection will have in awakening genius. A skilful preceptor will presently perceive the true bent of the temper of his pupil, by his being struck with a Blake or a Boyle, a Hyde or a Milton." A circumstance in the life of Cicero confinns this observa- tion. Atticus had a gallery adorned with the images or portraits of the great men of Rome, under each of which he had severally described their principal acts and honours, in a few concise verses of his own composition. It was by the contemplation of two of these portraits (the ancient Brutus and a venerable relative in one picture) that Cicero seems to have incited Bi'utus, by the example of these his great ancestors, to dissolve the tyranny of Caesar. General Fair- fax made a collection of engraved portraits of warriors. A Btory much in favour of portrait-collectors is that of the Athenian courtesan, who, in the midst of a riotous banquet with her lovers, accidentally casting her eyes on the portrait of a philosopher that hung opposite to her seat, the happy character of temperance and virtue struck her with so hvely PORTRAITS OP AUTHORS. 97 an image of her own unworthiness, that she suddenly re- treated for ever from the scene of debauchery. The Orien- tahsts have felt the same charm in their pictured memorials ; for " the imperial Akber," says Mr. Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, " employed artists to make portraits of all the principal omrahs and officers in his court; " they were bound together in a thick volume, wherein, as the Ayeen Akbery, or the Institutes of Akber, expresses it, " The Past are kept in lively remembrance ; and the Present are insured immortality." Leonard Aretin, when young and in prison, found a por- trait of Petrarch, on which his eyes were perpetually fixed ; aud this sort of contemplation inflamed the desire of imitat- ing this great man. Buffon hung the portrait of Newton before his writinuj-table. On this subject, Tacitus sublimely expresses himself at the close of his admired biography of Agricola: " I do not mean to censure the custom of preserving in brass or marble the shape and stature of eminent men ; but busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and perishable. The soul is formed of finer elements, its inward form is not to be ex- pressed by the hand of an artist with unconscious matter ; our manners and our morals may in some degree trace the resemblance. All of Agricola that gained our love and raised our admiration still subsists, and ever will subsist, pre- served in the minds of men, the register of ages and the records of fame." What is more agreeable to the curiositv of the mind and the eye than the portraits of great characters ? An old philosopher, whom Marville invited to see a collection of landscapes by a celebrated artist, replied, " Landscapes I prefer seeing in the country itself, but I am fond of contem- plating the pictures of illustrious men." This opinion has some truth ; Lord Orford preferred an interesting portrait to either landscape or historical painting. " A landscape, how- ever excellent in its distributions of wood and water, and VOL. I. 7 98 rORTIt.UTS OF AUTHORS. b..M.lings leaves not one Iraee fa ,l,e memory ; luslorieal pam„ng ,s perpetually false in a variety of way., n the S^ "me, the grouping, the portrait^ and L nothfag Jr .hal fabulous ,,,un„ng; but a real portrait is truth itself, and caU^ up so many collateral idea, as toHll an intelligent ^ind mo^ than any other species." Marville justly reprehends the fastidious feelings of tho=o mge ,„us men who have resisted the solicitatfons o ,1, much p„de as „ ,s vanity in those who are less difficult in h.s respect. Of Gray, Fielding, and Akenside, we haTe no heads for which they sat, a eircumstanee re^re ted br their adn,„-ers, and by physiognomists. " ^ "" To an arranged collection of Portraits, we owe several utterestmg works. Granger's justly csteem;d volumerorS mated m such a collection. Perraulfs Elo^es of "",0 Zl mous men of the seventeenth century" /ere drawn up tl cha.acter, of the age, which a fervent lover of the tine arts fame of tho,e great men. They are contined to bis nation as Granger's ,o ours. The parent of this race of books mav in'.T'' ';V"/"'°="™-f P-'- Jo"-'. wbieh oWgnS :d"l its" '^■"^•'^^■""°- ^"-"» ^^ "- O-eHb^dwith Paulus Jovius had a country house, fa an insular situation of a most romantic aspect. Built on the ruins of the villa of P^ny, in his time the foundations were still to be traced When e surrounding lake was calm, in i,s lucid b'om we e stiU viewed sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the fragments of those pyramids which had once adorned he residence of the friend of Tr.,jan. Jovius was" of a poet ; a Chnsfan prelate nourished on the sweet fiction, of pagan mythology. His pen colours like a pencil He paints rapturously lus gardens bathed by the waters o( the PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS. 99 lake, the shade and freshness of his woods, liis green hills, his sparkling fountains, the deep silence, and the calm of solitude. He describes a statue raised in his gardens to Na TURE ; in his hall an Apollo presided with his lyre, and the JNIuses with their attributes ; his library was guarded by Mercury, and an apartment devoted to the three Graces was embellished by Doric columns, and paintings of the most pleasing kind. Such was the interior ! Without, the pure and transparent lake spread its broad mirror, or rolled its voluminous windings, by banks richly covered ^vith olives and laurels ; and in the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre blushing with vines, and the eleva- tions of the Alps covered with woods and pasturage, and sprinkled with herds and flocks. In the centre of this enchanting habitation stood the Cabixet, where Paulus Jovius had collected, at great cost, the Portraits of celebrated men of the fourteenth and two succeeding centuries. The daily view of them animated his mind to compose their eulogiums. These are still curious, both for the facts they preserve, and the happy conciseness with which Jovius delineates a character. He had collected these portraits as others foi-m a collection of natural history ; and he pursued in their characters what others do in their experiments. One caution in collecting portraits must not be forgotten ; it respects their authenticity. We have too many supposititious heads, and ideal personages. Conrad ab Uifenbach, who seems to have been the first collector who projected a methodical arrangement, condemned those spurious portraits which were fit only for the amusement of children. The painter does not always give a correct likeness, or the en- graver misses it in his copy. Goldsmith was a short thick man, with wan features and a vulgar appearance, but looks tall and fashionable in a bag-%vig. Bayle's portrait docs not resemble him, as one of his friends writes. Rousseau, in his Montero cap, is in the same predicament. Winkelmanu's 100 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. portrait does not preserve the striking physiognomy of the man, and in the last edition a new one is substituted. The faithful Vertue refused to engrave for Houbraken's set, be- cause they did not authenticate their orighials ; and some of these are spurious, as that of Ben Jonson, Sir Edward Coke, and others. Busts are not so liable to these accidents. It ia to be regretted that men of genius have not been careful to transmit their own portraits to their admirers ; it forms a part of their character ; a false delicacy has interfered. Erasmus did not hke to have his own duninutive person sent down to posterity, but Holbein was always affectionately painting his friend. Montesquieu once sat to Dassier the medallist, after repeated denials, won over by the mgenious argument of the artist ; " Do you not think," said Dassier, " that there is as much pride in refusing my offer as in acceptmg it ? " DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. The literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the mahce of Men, as well as that of Time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment of victoiy, or in the unspar- ing devastation of their rage, have not been satisfied with destroying men, but have even carried their vengeance to hool's. The Persians, from hatred of the rehgion of the Phoeni- cians and the Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices a great number. A Grecian hbrary at Gnidus was burnt by the sect of Hippocrates, because the Gnidians refused to follow the doctrines of their master. If the followers of Hippocrates formed the majority, was it not very unorthodox in the Gnidians to prefer taking physic their own way ? But Faction has often annihilated books. The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, of the Chris- DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 101 tians, and the Philosophers ; the Jews burnt the books of the Christians and the Pagans; and the Christians burnt the books of the Pagans and the Jews. The greater part of tlie books of Origen and other heretics were continually burnt by the orthodox pai'ty. Gibbon pathetically describes the empty library of Alexandria, after the Christians had destroyed it. " The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or de- stroyed ; and near twenty years afterwards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and mdignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have ii'retrievably perished, might sunily have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages ; and either the zeal or avarice of the archbishop might have been satiated with the richest spoils which were the rewards of his victory." The pathetic narrative of Nicetas Choniates, of the ravages committed by the Christians of the thirteenth century in Con- stantinople, was fraudulently suppressed in the printed edi- tions. It has been preserved by Dr. Clarke ; who observes, that the Turks have committed fewer injuries to the works of art than the barbarous Christians of that age. The reading of the Jewish Talmud has been forbidden by various edicts, of the Emperor Justinian, of many of the French and Spanish kings, and numbers of Popes. All the copies were ordered to be burnt : the intrepid perseverance of the Jews themselves preserved that work from anniliila- tion. In 15G9 twelve thousand Copies were thrown into the flames at Cremona. John ReuchUn interfered to stop this universal destruction of Talmuds ; for which he became hated by the monks, and condemned by the Elector of Mentz, but appealing to Rome, the prosecution was stopped ; and the traditions of the Jews were considered as not neces- sary to be destroyed. Conquerors at first destroy ^vith the rashest zeal the na- 102 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. tional records of the conquered people ; hence it is that the Irish people deplore the ii-reparable losses of their most ancient national memorials, wliich their invaders have been too successful in annihilating. The same event occurred in the conquest of Mexico ; and the interesting history of the New World must ever remain imperfect, in consequence of the unfortunate success of the first missionaries. Clavigero, the most authentic historian of Mexico, continually laments this affecting loss. Every thing in that country had been painted, and painters abounded there as scribes in Europe. The first missionaries, suspicious that superstition was mixed with all their paintings, attacked the chief school of these artists, and collecting, in the market-place, a little mountain of these precious records, they set fire to it, and buried in the ashes the memory of many interesting events. Afterwards, sensible of their error, they tried to collect information from the mouths of the Indians ; but the Indians were indignantly silent : when they attempted to collect the remains of these painted histories, the patriotic Mexican usually buried hi concealment the fragmentary records of his country. The story of the Caliph Omar proclaiming throughout the kingdom, at the taking of Alexandria, that the Koran con- tained every thing wliich was useful to believe and to know, and therefore he commanded that all the books in the Alex- andrian library should be distributed to the masters of the baths, amounting to 4000, to be used in heating their stoves during a period of six months, mo'dern paradox would attempt to deny. But the tale would not be singular even were it true ; it perfectly suits the character of a bigot, a barbarian, and a blockhead. A similar event happened in Persia. When Abdoolah, who in the third century of the Mohamme- dan {Bra governed Khorassan, was presented at Nishapoor with a MS. which was shown as a literary curiosity, he asked the title of it — it was the tale of Wamick and Oozra, com- posed by the great poet Noshirwan. On this Abdoolah observed, that those of his country and faith had nothmg to DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 103 do witli any other book than the Koran ; and all Persian MSS. found within the circle of liis government, as the works of idolators, were to be burnt. Much of the most ancient poetry of the Persians perished by this fanatical edict. "When Buda was taken by the Turks, a Cardinal offered a vast sum to redeem the great library founded by Matthew Corvini, a literary monarch of Hungary ; it was rich in Greek and Hebrew lore, and the classics of antiquity. Tliirty amanuenses had been employed in copying JNISS. and illum- inating them by the finest ait. The barbarians destroyed most of the books in tearmg away their splendid covers and their silver bosses ; an Hungarian soldier picked up a book as a prize : it proved to be the Ethiopics of Hehodorus, from which the first edition was printed in 1534. Cardinal Ximenes seems to have retaliated a little on the Saracens ; for at the taking of Granada, he condemned to the flames five thousand Korans. The following anecdote respecting a Spanish missal, called St. Isidore's, is not incurious ; hard fighting saved it from destruction. In the Moorish wars, all these missals had been destroyed, excepting those in the city of Toledo. There, in six churches, the Clu'istians were allowed the free exer- cise of their religion. When the Moors were expelled several centuries afterwards from Toledo, Alphonsus the Sixth ordered the Roman missal to be used in those churches ; but the people of Toledo insisted on having their own, as revised by St. Isidore. It seemed to them that Alphonsus was more tyrannical than the Turks. The con- test between the Roman and the Toletan missals came to that lieight, that at length it was determined to decide their fate by single combat ; the champion of the Toletan missal felled by one blow the knight of the Roman missal. Alphonsus still considered this battle as merely the effect of the heavy arm of the doughty Toletan, and ordered a fast to be pro- claimed, and a great fire to be prepared, into which, after Ida majesty and the people had joined in prayer f'r heavenly 104 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. assistance in tliis ordeal, both the rivals (not the men, but the missals), were thi-own into the flames — again St. Isidore's missal triumphed, and this iron book was then allowed to be orthodox by Alphonsus, and the good people of Toledo were allowed to say their prayers as they had long been used to do. However, the copies of this missal at length became very scarce ; for now, when no one opposed the reading of St. Isidore's missal, none cared to use it. Cardinal Ximenes found it so ditficult to obtain a copy, that he printed a large impression, and built a chapel, consecrated to St. Isidore, that this service might be daily chaunted as it had been by the ancient Christians. The works of the ancients were frequently destroyed at the instigation of the monks. They appear sometimes to have mutilated them, for passages have not come down to us, which once evidently existed ; and occasionally their in- terpolations and other forgeries formed a destruction in a new shape, by additions to the originals. They were inde- fatigable in erasing the best works of the most eminent Greek and Latm authors, in order to transcribe their ridiculous lives of saints on the obliterated vellum. One of the books of Livy is in the Vatican most painfully defaced by some pious father for the purpose of writing on it some missal or psalter, and there have been recently others discovered in the same state. Inflamed with the blhidest zeal against every thing pagan, Pope Gregory VII. ordered that the library of the Palatine Apollo, a treasury of literature formed by succes- sive emperors, should be committed to the flames ! He issued this order under the notion of confining the attention of the clergy to the holy scriptures ! From that time all ancient learning which was not sanctioned by the authority of the church, has been emphatically distinguished ?ls profane in opposition to sacred. This pope is said to have burnt the works of Varro, the learned Roman, that Saint Austin should escape from the charge of plagiarism, being deeply uidebted to Varro for much of his great work " the City of God." DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 105 The Jesuits, sent by the Emperor Ferdinand to proscribe Lutheranism from Bohemia, converted that flourishinnr kinoj- dom comparatively into a desert. Convinced that an en* lightened people could never be long subservient to a tyrant, they struck one fatal blow at the national literature ; every book they condemned was destroyed, even those of antiquity ; the annals of the nation -were forbidden to be read, and writ- ers were not permitted even to compose on subjects of Bohe- mian literature. The mother-tongue was held out as a mark of vulgar obscurity, and domiciliary visits were made for the purpose of inspecting the libraries of the Bohemians. With their books and their language they lost their national char- acter and their independence. The destruction of hbraries in the reign of Henry VIII. at the dissolution of the monasteries, is wept over by John Bale. Those who purchased the religious houses took the libraries as part of the booty, ^\^th which they scoured their furniture, or sold the books as waste paper, or sent them abroad in ship-loads to foreign bookbinders. The fear of destruction induced many to hide manuscripts under ground, and in old walls. At the Eeformation popular rage exhausted itself on illuminated books, or MSS. that had red letters in the title-page ; any work that was decorated was sure to be thrown into the flames as a suy)erstitious one. lied letters and embellished figures were sure marks of bein" papistical and diabolical. We still find such volumes muti- lated of their gilt letters and elegant initials. Many have been found under-ground, having been forgotten ; what escaped the flames were obliterated by the damp : such is the deplorable fate of books during a persecution ! The puritans burned every thing they found which bore the vestige of popish origin. We have on record many cui ious accounts of their pious depredations, of their maiming images and erasing pictures. The heroic expeditions of one Dows- ing are journalized by himself: a fanatical Quixote, to whose mtrepid arm many of our noseless saints, sculptured on our Cathedrals, owe their misfortunes. 106 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. The following are some details from the diary of this re- doubtable Goth, during his rage for reformation. His entries are expressed with a laconic conciseness, and it would seem with a little dry humour. "At Sunbury, we brake down ten mighty great angels in glass. At Barham, brake down the twelve apostles in the chancel, and six superstitious pictures more there ; and eight in the church, one a lamb with a cross (-1- ) on the back ; and digged down the steps and took up four superstitious inscriptions in brass," &c. ''Lady Bruce's house, the chapel, a picture of God the Father, of the Trinity, of Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the cloven tongues, which we gave orders to take down, and the lady promised to do it." At another place they " brake six hundred super- stitious pictures, eight Holy Ghosts, and three of the Son." And in this manner he and his deputies scoured one hundred and fifty parishes ! It has been humorously conjectured, that from this ruthless devastator originated the phrase to give a Bowsing. Bisliop Hall saved the windows of his chapel at Norwich from destruction, by taking out the heads of the figures; and this accounts for the many faces in church windows which we see supplied by white glass. In the various civil wars in our country, numerous libra- ries have suflfered both in MSS. and printed books. " I dare maintain," says Fuller, " that the wars betwixt York and Lancaster, which lasted sixty years, were not so de- structive as our modern wars in six years." He alludes to the parliamentary feuds in the reign of Charles I. " For during the former their differences agreed in the same re- llgion, impressing them with reverence to all allowed muniments ! whilst our civil tears, founded in faction and variety of pretended religio7is, exposed all naked church records a prey to armed violence; a sad vacuum, which will be sensible in our English historie." When it was proposed to the great Gustavus of Sweden to destroy the palace of the Dukes of Bavaria, that hero nobly refused ; observing, " Let us not copy the example of our DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 107 unlettered ancestors, who, by w.aging war against every production of genius, have rendered the name of Gotu universally proverbial of the rudest state of barbarity." Even the civilization of the eighteenth century could not preserve from the destructive fury of an infui-iated mob, m the most polished city of Europe, the valuable INISS. of the great p]arl of Mansfield, which were madly consigned to the flames during the riots of 1780; as those of Dr. Priestley were consumed by the mob at Birmingham. In the year 1599, the Hall of the Stationers underwent as great a purgation as was carried on in Don Quixote's library. Warton gives a list of the best writers who were ordered tor immediate conflagration by the prelates Wliitgift and Ban- croft, urged by the Puritanical and Calvinistic factions. Like tliieves and outlaws, they were ordered to he taken wheresoever they may be found. — " It Avas also decreed that no satires or epigrams should be printed for the future. No plays were to be printed wthout the inspection and per- mission of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London ; nor any English historyes, I suppose novels and romances, without the sanction of the privy council. Any pieces of this nature, unlicensed, or now at large and wan- dering abroad, were to be diligently sought, recalled, and delivered over to the ecclesiastical arm at London-house." At a later period, and by an opposite party, among other extravagant motions made in parliament, one was to destroy the Records in the Tower, and to settle the nation on a new foundation ! The veiy same pnnciple was attempted to be acted on in the French Revolution by the " true sans-culottes." With us Sir Matthew Ilale showed the weakness of the pro- iect, and while he drew on his side " all sober persons, stopped even the mouths of the frantic people themselves." To descend to the losses incurred by individuals, whose names ought to have served as an amulet to charm away the demons of literary destruction. One of the most interesting is tlie fate of Aristotle's library ; he wl.o by a Greek term 108 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS, was first saluted as a collector of books ! His works have come down to us accidentally, but not Avithout irreparable injuries, and with no slight suspicion respecting their authen- ticity. The story is told by Strabo, in his thirteenth book. The books of Aristotle came from his scholar Theophrastus to Neleus, whose posterity, an illiterate race, kept them locked up without using them, buried in the earth ! Apellion, a curious collector, purchased them, but finding the MSS. in- jured by age and moisture, conjecturally sui)plied their de- ficiencies. It is impossible to know how far Apellion has corrupted and obscured the text. But the mischief did not end here ; when Sylla at the taking of Athens brought them to Rome, he consigned them to the care of Tyrannio, a gram- marian, who employed scribes to copy them ; he sufi'ered them to pass through his hands without correction, and took great freedoms with them ; the words of Strabo are strong : *' Ibique Tyrannionem grammaticum iis usum atque (ut fama est) intercidisse, aut invertisse." He gives it indeed as a report ; but the fact seems confirmed by the state in which we find these works : Averroes declared that he read Aris- totle forty times over before he succeeded in perfectly under- standing him ; he pretends he did at the one-and-fortieth time ! And to prove this, has pubhshed five fohos of commentary ! We have lost much valuable hterature by the illiberal or malignant descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters have been destroyed, I am informed, by her daughter, who im- agined that the family honours were lowered by the addition of those of literature : some of her best letters, recently pubhshed, were found buried in an old ti-unk. It would have mortified her ladyship's daughter to have heard, that her mother was the Sevigne of Britain. At the death of the learned Peiresc, a chamber in his house filled with letters from the most eminent scholars of the age was discovered : the learned in Europe had ad DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 109 dressed Peiresc in their difficulties, who was hence called " the attorney-general of the republic of letters." The nig- gardly niece, althoujih repeatedly entreated to permit them to be published, preferred to use these learned epistles occa- sionally to light her fires ! The MSS. of Leonardo da Vinci have equally suffered from his relatives. When a curious collector discovered some, he generously brought them to a descendant of the great painter, who coldly observed, that " he had a great deal more in the garret, which had lain there for many years, if the rats had not destroyed them ! " Nothing Avhich this great artist wrote but showed an inventive genius. Menage observes on a friend having had his library de- stroyed by fire, in which several valuable MSS. had per- ished, that such a loss is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man of letters. This gentleman afterwards consoled himself by composing a little treatise De Bibliothecce incendio. It must have been sufficiently curious. Even in the present day men of letters are subject to similar mis- fortunes ; for though the fire-offices will insure books, they will not allow authors to value their own manuscripts. A fire in the Cottonian library shrivelled and destroyed raany Anglo-Saxon MSS. — a loss now irreparable. The antiquary is doomed to spell hard and hardly at the baked fragments that crumble in his hand. Meninsky's famous Persian dictionary met with a sad ftite. Its excessive rarity is owing to the siege of Vienna by the Turks : a bomb fell on the author's house, and consumed the principal part of his indefatigable labours. There are few sets of this high-priced work which do not bear evident proofs of the bomb ; while many parts are stained with the water sent to quench the fiames. The suffijrings of an author for the loss of his manuscripts strongly appear in the case of Anthony Urceus, a great scholar of the fifteenth century. The loss of his papers bcems immediately to have been followed by madness. At 110 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. Forli, he had an apartment in the palace, and had prepared an important worli for publication. His room was dark, and he generally wrote by lamp-light. Having gone out, he left the lamp burning ; the papers soon kindled, and his library was reduced to ashes. As soon as he heard the news, he ran furiously to the palace, and knocking his head violently against the gate, uttered this blasphemous language : " Jesus Christ, what great crime have I done ! who of those who believed in you have I ever treated so cruelly ? Hear what I am saying, for I am in earnest, and am resolved. If by chance I should be so weak as to address myself to you at the point of death, don't hear me, for I will not be with you, but prefer hell and its eternity of torments." To which, by the by, he gave little credit. Those who heard these ravings, vainly tried to console him. He quitted the town, and hved franticly, wandering about the woods ! Ben Jonson's Execration on Vulcan was composed on a like occasion ; the fruits of twenty years' study were con- sumed in one short hour ; our literature suffered, for among some works of imagination there were many philosophical collections, a commentary on the poetics, a complete critical grammar, a life of Henry V., his journey into Scotland, with all his adventures in that poetical pilgrimage, and a poem on the ladies of Great Britain. What a catalogue of losses ! Castelvetro, the Italian commentator on Aristotle, having heard that his house was on fire, ran through the streets ex- claiming to the people, alia Poetical alia Poetical To the Poetic ! To the Poetic ! He was then writing his com- mentary on the Poetics of Aristotle. Several men of letters have been known to have risen from their death-bed, to destroy their MSS. So solicitous have they been not to venture their posthumous reputation in the hands of undiscerning friends. Colardeau, the elegant versifier of Pope's epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, had not yet destroyed what he had written of a translation of Tasso. At the approach of death, he recollected his unfinished DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. HI labour ; lie knew that his friends would not have the courage to annihilate one of his works ; this was leserved for him. l)}ing, he raised himself, and as if animated by an honoura- ble action, he dragged himself along, and with trembling hands seized his papers, and consumed them in one sacrifice. — I recollect another instance of a man of letters, of our own country, who acted the same part. He had passed his life in constant study, and it was observed that he had written several folio volumes, which his modest fears would not per- mit him to expose to the eye even of his critical friends. He promised to leave his labours to posterity ; and he seemed sometimes, with a glow on his countenance, to exult that they would not be unworthy of their acceptance. At his death his sensibility took the alarm ; he had the folios brought to his bed : no one could open them, for they Avere closely locked. At the sight of his favourite and mysterious labours, he paused ; he seemed disturbed in his mind, while he felt at every moment his strength decaying ; suddenly he raised his feeble hands by an eHbrt of firm resolve, burnt liis papers, and smiled as the greedy Vulcan licked up every page. The task exhausted his remaining strength, and he soon afterwards expired. The late Mrs. Inchbald had writ ten her hfe in several volumes ; on her death-bed, from a motive perhaps of too much delicacy to admit of any argu- ment, she requested a friend to cut them into pieces before her eyes — not having sufficient strength left herself to per- form this funereal office. These are instances of what may be called the heroism of authors. The republic of letters has suffered irreparable losses by ehipwecks. Guarino Veronese, one of those learned Ital- ians who travelled through Greece for the recovery of MSS., had his pei'severance repaid by the acquisition of many valu- able works. On his return to Italy he was shipwrecked, and lost his treasures ! So poignant was his grief on this occa- sion that, according to the relation of one of his countrymen, his hair turned suddenly wliite 112 SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS. About the year 1700, Hudde, an opulent burgomaster of IMiddleburgb, animated solely by literary curiosity, went to . China to instruct himself in the language, and in whatever was remarkable in this singular people. He acquired the skill of a mandarine in that ditTicult language ; nor did the form of his Dutch face undeceive the physiognomists of China. He succeeded to the dignity of a mandarine ; he travelled through the provinces under this character, and returned to Europe with a collection of observations, the cherished labour of thirty years, and all these were sunk in the bottomless sea. The great Pinellian library, after the death of its illus- trious possessor, filled three vessels to be conveyed to Naples. Pursued by corsairs, one of the vessels was taken ; but the pirates finding nothing on board but books, they threw them all into the sea : such was the fate of a great portion of this famous library. National libraries have often perished at sea, from the circumstance of conquerors transporting them into their own kingdoms. SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS. Although it is the opinion of some critics that our liter ary losses do not amount to the extent which others imagine, they are however much greater than they allow. Our se- verest losses are felt in the historical province, and particu- larly in the earliest records, which might not have been the least interesting to philosophical curiosity. The history of Phoenicia by Sanchoniathon, supposed to be a contemporary with Solomon, now consists of only a few valuable fragments preserved by Eusebius. The same ill fortune attends Manetho's history of Egypt, and Berosus's history of Chaldea. The histories of these most ancient SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS. 113 nations, however veiled in fables, would have presented to the philosopher singular objects of contemplation. Of the history of Polybius, which once contained forty books, we have now only five ; of the historical library of Diodorus Siculus fifteen books only remain out of forty ; and half of the Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis has perished. Of the eighty books of the history of Dion Cassius, twenty-five only remain. The present opening book of Ammianus Marcellinus is entitled the fourteenth. Livy's hi-tory consisted of one hundred and forty books, and we obly possess thirty-five of that pleasing historian. What a treasure has been lost in the thirty books of Tacitus ! httle more than four remain. Murphy elegantly observes, that " the reign of Titus, the delight of human kind, is totally lost, and Domitian has escaped the vengeance of the histo- rian's pen." Yet Tacitus in fragments is still the colossal torso of history. Velleius Paterculus, of whom a fragment only has reached us, we owe to a single copy : no other hav- ing ever been discovered, and which has occasioned the text of tliis historian to remain incurably corrupt. Taste and criticism have certainly incurred an irreparable loss in that Treatise on the Causes of the Comipiion of Eloquence, by Quintilian ; which he has himself noticed with so much sat- isfaction in his " Institutes." Petrarch declares, that in his youth he had seen the works of Varro, and the second Decad of Livy ; but all his endeavours to recover them were fruit- less. Thijse are only some of the most known losses ; but in reading contemporary writers we are perpetually discovering many important ones. We have lost two precious works in ancient biography : Varro wrote the lives of seven hundred illustrious Romans ; and Atticus, the friend of Cicero, com- posed another, on the acts of the great men among the Romans. When we consider that these writers lived famil- iarly with the finest geniuses of their times, and were opu- lent, hospitable, and lovers of the fine arts, their biography VOL. I. 8 114 SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS. and their portraits, which are said to have accompanied them, are felt as an irreparable loss to hterature. I suspect like- wise we have had great losses of which we are not always aware ; for in that curious letter in which the younger Pliny describes in so interesting a manner the sublime industry, for it seems sublime by its magnitude, of liis Uncle,* it appears that his Natural History, that vast register of the wisdom and the credulity of the ancients, was not his only great labour ; for among his other works was a history in twenty books, wliich has entirely perished. We discover also the works of writers, which, by the accounts of them, appear to have equalled in genius those which have descended to us. Pliny has feelingly described a poet of whom he tells us " his works are never out of my hands ; and whether I sit down to write any thing myself, or to revise what I have already wrote, or am in a disposition to amuse myself, I constantly take up this agreeable author ; and as often as I do so, he is still new.f" He had before compared this poet to Catullus ; and in a critic of so fine a taste as Pliny, to have cherished so constant an intercourse with the writings of this author, indicates high powers. Instances of this kind frequently occur. Who does not regret the loss of the Anti- cato of Caesar? The losses which the poetical world has sustained are suffi- ciently known by those who are conversant with the few invaluable fragments of Menander, who might have inter- ested us perhaps more than Homer : for he was evidently the domestic poet, and the lyre he touched was formed of the strings of the human heart. He was the painter of passions, and the historian of the manners. The opinion of Quintilian is confirmed by the golden fragments preserved for the Eng- lish reader in the elegant versions of Cumberland. Even of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who each wrote about one hundi'ed dramas, seven only have been preserved of * Book m. Letter V. Melmoth's translation, t Book L Letter XVL QU0DLI15ETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. 115 ^schylus and of Sophocles;, and nineteen of Euripides. Of the one hundred and thirty comedies of Phiutus, we only inherit twenty imperfect ones. The remainder of Ovid'a Fasti has never been recovered. I believe that a philosopher would consent to lose any poet to regain an historian ; nor is this unjust, for some future ])oet may arise to supply the vacant place of a lost poet, but it is not so with the historian. Fancy may be supplied ; but Truth once lost m the annals of mankmd leaves a chasm never to be filled. QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. The scholastic questions were called Questiones Quodlihe ticcE ; and they were generally so ridiculous that we have retained the word QuodUbet in our vernacular style, to express any thing ridiculously subtile ; something which comes at length to be distinguished into nothingness, " With all the rash dexterity of wit." The history of the scholastic philoso])hy furnishes an in- structive theme ; it enters into the history of the human mind, and fills a niche in our hterary annals. The works of the scholastics, with the debates of these QuodUhetarians, at once show the greatness and the littleness of the human intel- lect ; for though they often degenerate into incredible absur- dities, those who have examined the works of Thomas Aqui- nas and Duns Scotus have confessed their admiration of the Herculean texture of brain which tliey exhausted in demol- ishing their aerial fabrics. The following is a slight sketch of the school divinity. The Christian doctrines in the primitive ages of the gospel were adapted to the simple comprehension of the multitude ; metaphysical subtilties were not even employed by the J16 QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. Fathers, of whom several are eloquent. The Homilies ex- plained, by an obvious interpretation, some scriptural point, or inferred, by artless illustration, some moral doctrine. When the Arabians became the only learned people, and their empire extended over the greater part of the known world, they impressed their own genius on those nations with whom they were allied as friends, or reverenced as masters. The Arabian genius was fond of abstruse studies ; it was highly metaphysical and mathematical, for the fine arts theii religion did not permit them to cultivate ; and the first knowl- edge which modern Europe obtained of Euclid and Aristotle was through the medium of Latin translations of Arabic* versions. The Cliristians in the west received their first lessons from the Arabians in the east ; and Aristotle, with his Arabic commentaries, was enthroned in the schools of Christendom. Then burst into birth from the dark cave of metaphysics, a numerous and ugly spawn of monstrous sects ; unnatural chil- dren of the same foul mother, who never met but for mutual destruction. Religion became what is called the study of Theology ; and they all attempted to reduce the worship of God into a system! and the creed into a thesis! Every point relating to religion was debated through an endless chain of infinite questions, incomprehensible distinctions, with differences mediate and immediate, the concrete and the abstract, a perpetual civil war carried on against common sense in all the Aristotelian severity. There existed a rage for Aristotle ; and Melancthon complains that in sacred assemblies the ethics of Anstotle were read to the people instead of the gospel. Aristotle was placed a-head of St. Paul ; and St. Thomas Aquinas in his works distinguishes him by the title of " The Philosopher ; " inferring, doubtless, that no other man could possibly be a philosopher who dis- agreed with Aristotle. Of the blind rites paid to Aristotle, the anecdotes of the Nominalists and Realists are noticed in the article " Literary Controversy " in this work. QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. 117 Had their subtile questions and perpetual wranglings only been addressed to the metaphysician in his closet, and had nothing but strokes of the pen occurred, the scholastic divinity would only have formed an episode in the calm narrative of literary history ; but it has claims to be registered in political annals, from the numerous persecutions and tragical events with which they too long perplexed their followers, and dis- turbed the repose of Europe. The Thomists, and the Scotists, liie Occamites, and many others, soared into the regions of mysticism. Peter Lombard had laboriously compiled, after the cele- brated Abelard's " Introduction to Divmity," his four books of " Sentences," from the writings of the Fathers ; and for this he is called " The Master of Sentences." These Sen- tences, on wluch we have so many commentaries, are a col- lection of passages from the Fathers, the real or apparent contradictions of whom he endeavours to reconcile. But his successors were not satisfied to be mere commentators on these "sentences," which they now only made use of as a row of pegs to hang on their fine-spun metaphysical cobwebs. They at length collected all these quodlibetical questions into enormous volumes, under the terrifying form, for those who have seen them, of Summaries of Divinity ! They contrived, by their chimerical speculations, to question the plainest truths ; to wrest the simple meaning of the Holy Scriptures, and give some appearance of truth to the most ridiculous and monstrous opinions. One of the subtile questions which agitated the world in the tenth century, relating to dialectics, was concerning nniversals (as for example, man, horse, dog, «&c.) signifying not this or that in particular, but all in general. They distinguished universdls, or what we call abstract terms, by the genera and species rerum ; and they never could decide whether these were substances — or names ! That is, whether the abstract idea we form of a horse was not really a being as much as the horse we ride ! All this, and some congenial points re- 118 QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. specting the origin of our ideas, and what ideas were, and whether we really had an idea of a thing before we dis- covered the thing itself — in a word, what they called univer- sals, and the essence of universals ; of all this nonsense, on which they at length proceeded to accusations of heresy, and for which many learned men were excommunicated, stoned, and what not, the whole was derived from the reveries ol Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, about the nature of ideas, than which subject to the present day no discussion ever degener- ated into such insanity. A modern metaphysician mfei*s that we have no ideas at all ! Of the scholastic divines, the most illustrious was Saint Thomas Aquinas, styled the Angelical Doctor. Seventeen folio volumes not only testify his industry but even his genius. He was a great man, busied all his life with making the charades of metaphysics. My learned friend Sharon Turner has favoured me with a notice of his greatest work — his " Sum of .all Theology," Summa totius Theologice, Paris, 1615. It is a metaphysico- logical treatise, or the most abstruse metaphysics of theology. It occupies above 1250 folio pages, of very small close print in double columns. It may be worth noticing that to this work are appended 19 folio pages of double columns of errata, and about 200 of additional index ! The whole is thrown into an Aristotelian form ; the difficul- ties or questions are proposed first, and the answers are then appended. There are 1 68 articles on Love — 358 on Angels — 200 on the Soul — 85 on Demons — 151 on the Intellect — 134 on Law — 3 on the Catamenia — 237 on Sins — 17 on Virginity, and others on a variety of topics. The scholastic tree is covered with prodigal foliage, but is baiTen of fruit ; and when the scholastics employed themselves in solving the deepest mysteries, their philosophy became nothing more than an instrument in the hands of the Roman Pontiff. Aquinas has composed 358 articles on angels, of which a few of the heads have been culled for the reader. QUODLIP.ETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. 119 He treats of angels, their substance, orders, offices, natures, habits, «S:c. — as if he himself had been an old experienced angel ! Angels were not before the world ! Angels might have been before the world ! Angels were created by God — They were created imme- diately by him — They were created in the Empyrean sky — They were created in grace — They were created in imper- fect beatitude. After a severe chain of reasoning, he shows, that angels are incorporeal compared to us, but corporeal compared to God. An angel is composed of action and potentiality ; the more superior he is, he has the less potentiahty. They have not matter properly. Every angel dilfei-s from another angel in species. An angel is of the same species as a soul. Angels have not naturally a body united to them. They may as- sume bodies ; but they do not want to assume bodies for themselves, but for us. The bodies assumed by angels are of thick air. The bodies they assume have not the natural virtues which they show, nor the operations of hfe, but those which are common to inanimate things. An angel may be the same with a body. In the same body there are, the soul formally giving being, and operating natural operations ; and the angel operating supernatural operations. Angels administer and govern every corporeal creature. God, an angel, and the soul, are not contained in space, but contain it. ]\Iany angels cannot be in the same space. The motion of an angel in space is nothing else than dif- ferent contacts of different successive places. The motion of an angel is a succession of his different operations. His motion may be continuous and discontinuous as he ^vm. 120 QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS, The continuous motion of an angel is necessary through every medium, but may be discontinuous without a medium. The velocity of the motion of an angel is not according to the quantity of his strength, but according to his will. The motion of the illumination of an angel is threefold, or circular, straight, and oblique. In this account of the motion of an angel we are reminded of the beautiful description of Milton, who marks it by a continuous motion, " Smooth-sliding without step." The reader desirous of being merry with Aquinas's angels may find them in Martinus Scriblerus, in Ch. VII. who in- quires if angels pass from one extreme to another without going tlii-ough the middle f And if angels know things more clearly in a morning ? How many angels can dance on the point of a very fine needle, without jostling one another ? All the questions in Aquinas are answered with a subtlety of distinction more difficult to comprehend and remember than many problems in Euchd ; and perhaps a few of the best might still be selected for youth as curious exercises of the understanding. However, a great part of these peculiai productions are loaded with the most trifling, irreverent, and even scandalous discussions. Even Aquinas could gravely debate. Whether Christ was not an hermaphrodite ? Whether there ai-e excrements m Paradise? Whether the pious at the resurrection will rise with their bowels ? Others asain debated — Whether the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary in the shape of a serpent, of a dove, of a man, or of a woman ? Did he seem to be young or old ? In what dress was he ? AVas his garment white or of two colours ? Was his linen clean or foul? Did he appear in the morning, noon, or evening ? "WTiat was the colour of the Virgin Mary's hair ? Was she acquainted with the mechanic and liberal arts? Had she a thorough knowledge of the Book of Sentences, and all it contains ? that is, Peter Lombard's QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. ]21 compilation from the works of the Fathers, written 1200 years after her death. — But these are only trilling matters : they also agitated, Whether when during her conception the Virgin was seated, Christ too was seated ; and whether when she lay down, Christ also lay down ? The following question was a favourite topic for discussion, and the acutest logicians never resolved it : " When a hog is carried to market with a rope tied about his neck, which is held at the other end by a man, whether is the hog carried to market by the rope or the man ? " In the tenth centuiy,* aft^er long and ineffectual contro- versy about the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament they at length universally agreed to sign a peace. This mutual forbearance must not however be ascribed to the prudence and virtue of those times. It was mere ignorance and incapacity of reasoning which kept the peace, and de- terred them from entering into debates to which they at length found themselves, unequal ! Lord Lyttleton, in his Life of Henry II., laments the un- happy effects of the scholastic philosophy on the progress of the human mind. The minds of men were turned from clas- sical studies to the subtilties of school divinity, Avhich Rome encouraged, as more profitable for the maintenance of her doctrines. It was a great misfortune to religion and to learn- ing, that men of such acute understandings as Abelard and liOmbard, who might have done much to refonn the errors of the church, and to restore science in Europe, should have depraved both, by applying their admirable parts to weave those cobwebs of soj)histry, and to confound the clear sim- plicity of evangelical truths, by a false philosophy and a captious logic. ♦ Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Vol. V. p. 17. 122 THE SIX FOLLIES OP SCIENCE. FAME CONTEMNED. All men are fond of glory, and even those philosophers wlio wrote against that noble passion prefix their names to their own works. It is worthy of observation that the authors of two religious hooks, universally I'eceived, have concealed their names from the world. The " Imitation of Christ " is attributed, without any authority, to Thomas A'Kempis; and the author of the " Whole Duty of Man " still remains undis- covered. Millions of their books have been dispersed in the Christian world. To have revealed their names would have given them as much worldly fame as any moralist has obtained — but they contemned it ! Their religion was raised above all worldly passions ! Some profane writers indeed have also concealed their names to great works, but their motives were of a very different cast. THE SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE. Nothing is so capable of disordering the intellects as an intense application to any one of these six things : the Quad- rature of the Circle ; the Multiplication of the Cube ; the Perpetual Motion; the Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology. " It is proper, however," Fontenelle remarks, " to apply one's self to these inquiries ; because we find, as we proceed, many valuable discoveries of which we were before ignorant." The same thought Cowley has ap- plied, in an address to his mistress, thus — "Although I think thou never wilt be found, Yet I'm resolved to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains. So though the chymist his great secret miss, THK SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE. 123 (For neither it in art nor nature is) Yet tilings well worth his toil he gains; And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments by the way." The same thought is in Donne ; perhaps Cowley did not suspect that he was an imitator ; Fonteneiie could not have read either ; he struck out the thought by his own rellcction. Glauber searched long and deeply for the philosopher's Btone, which though he did not find, yet in his researches he discovered a very useful purging salt, which bears his name. Maupertuis observes on the Philosophical Stone, that we cannot prove the impossibility of obtaining it, but we can easily see the folly of those, who employ their time and money in seeking for it. This price is too great to counter- balance the little probability of succeeding in it. However, it is still a bantling of modern chemistry, who has nodded very affectionately on it ! — Of the Perpetual Motion, he shows the impossibility, in the sense in which it is generally received. On the Quadrature of the Circle, he says he cannot decide if this problem be resolvable or not : but he observes, that it is very useless to search for it any more ; since we have arrived by approximation to such a point of accuracy, that on a large circle, such as the orbit which the earth describes round the sun, the geometrician will not mis- take bv the thickness of a hair. The quadrature of the circle is still, however, a favourite game of some visionaries, and several are still imagining that they have discovered the perpetual motion ; the ItJilians nick-name them matto pcr- petuo ; and Bekker tells us of the fate of one Hartmann, of Leipsic, who was in such despair at having passed his life sc vainly, in studying the perpetual motion, that at length he hanged himself! 124 IMITATORS. IMITATORS. Some writers, usually pedants, imagine that they can supply, by the labours of industry, the deficiencies of nature. Paul us Manutius frequently spent a month in writing a single letter. He affected to imitate Cicero. But although he painfully attained to something of the elegance of his style, destitute of the native graces of unaffected composition, he was one of those whom P>asmus bantered in his Cice- romanus, as so slavishly devoted to Cicero's style, that they ridiculously employed the utmost precautions when they were seized by a Ciceronian fit. The Nosoponus of Erasmus tells us of his devotion to Cicero ; of his three indexes to all his words, and his never writing but in the dead of night, em- ploying months upon a few lines ; and his religious veneration for words, with liis total indifference about the sense. Le Brun, a Jesuit, was a singular instance of such un- happy imitation. He was a Latin poet, and his themes were religious. He formed the extravagant project of sub- stituting a religious Virgil and Oi'id merely by adapting his works to their titles. His Christian Virgil consists, like the Pagan Virgil, of Eclogues, Georgics, and of an Epic of twelve books ; with this difference, that devotional subjects are sub- stituted for fabulous ones. His epic is the Ignaciad, or the pilgrimage of Saint Ignatius. His Christian Ovid is in the same taste ; every thing wears a new face. His Epistlos are pious ones ; the Fasti are the six days of the Creation , the Klegies are the Lamentations of Jeremiah ; a poem on the Love of God is substituted for the Art of Love ; and the history of some Conversions supplies the place of the Meta- morphoses ! This Jesuit would, no doubt, have approved of a family Shakspeare ! A poet of far different character, the elegant Sannazarius, has done much the same thing in his poem De Partu Vir- ginis. The same servile imitat'on of ancient taste appears. IMITATORS. 12.'7 It professes to celebrate the birth of Christ, yet his name ia not once mentioned in it ! The Virgin herself is styled spes deornni ! " The hoj)e of the gods ! " The Incarnation is predicted by Proteus ! The Virgin, instead of consulting the sacred writings, reads the Sibylline oracles! Her at- tendants are dryads, nereids, &,c. This monstrous mixture of polytheism witli the mysteries of Cliristianity appeared in every thing he had about him. In a chapel at one of lii3 country seats he had two statues placed at his tomb, Apollo and 3Iinerva ; cathohc piety tbund no difficulty in the pi-cs- ent case, as well as in innumerable others of the same kind, to inscribe the statue of Apollo with the name of David, and that of Minerva with the female one of Judith ! Senecji, in his 1 1 4th Epistle, gives a curious literary anecdote of the sort of imitation by which an inferior mind becomes the monkey of an original Avriter. At Rome, when Sallust was the fashionable writer, short sentences, uncommon words, and an obscure brevity were affected as so many elegances. Arruntius, who wrote the history of the Punic Wars, pain- fully laboured to imitate Sallust. Expressions which are rare in Sallust are frequent in Arruntius, and, of course, without the motive that induced Sallust to adopt them. What rose naturally under the pen of the great historian, the minor one must have run after with ridiculous anxiety. Seneca adds several instances of the servile affectation of Arruntius, which seem much like those we once had of Johnson, by the undis- cerning herd of his ai)es. One cannot but smile at these imitators ; we have abounded with them. In the days of Churchill, every month produced an effusion which tolerably imitated his slovenly versification, his coarse invective, and his careless mediocrity — but the genius remained with the I^nglish Juvenal. Sterne had his countless multitude ; and hi Fielding's time, Tom Jones pro- duced more bastards in wit than the author could ever sus- pect. To such literary echoes, the reply of Philip of Macedon tL one who prided himself on imitating the notes of the mgh> I2G CICERO'S PUNS. iiigale may be applied : "I prefer the nightingale herself!" Even the most successful of this imitating tribe must be doomed to share the fate of Silius Italicus in Jiis cold imita- tion of Virgil? iiiid Cawthorne in his empty harmony of Po|)e. To all tliese imitators I must apply an Arabian anecdote. Ebn Saad, one of Mahomet's amanuenses, when writing what the profjliet dictated, cried out by way of admiration — " Blessed be God, the best Creator ! " INIahomet approved of the expression, and desired liim to write those words down as part of the inspired passage. — The consequence ^^"as, that Ebn Saad began to think himself Jis great a prophet as his master, and took upon himself to imitate the Koran according to his fancy ; but the imitator got himself into trouble, and only escaped with life by falling on his knees, and solemnly swearing he would never again imitate the Koran, for which Jie was sensible God had never created him. CICERO'S PUNS. "I SHOULD," says Menage, " have received great pleasure to have conversed with Cicero, had I lived in his time. He must have been a man very agreeable in conversation, since even Ctesar carefully collected his hons mots. Cicero has boasted of the great actions he has done for his country, because there is no vanity in exulting in the performance of our duties ; but he has not boasted that he was the most eloquent orator of his age, though he certainly was ; because nothing is more disgusting than to exult in our intellectual powers." "Wliatever were the bons mots of Cicero, of which few have come down to us, it is certain tliat Ciceio was an invcteiate punster ; and he seems to have been moi'e ready with them than with rejiartees. He said to a senator, who was the son of a tailor, " Rem acu tctigisti." You have touched it CICERO'S PUNS. 127 5iliar|>ly ; acu means sharpness as well as the point of a needle. To the son of a cook, " Ego quoque tibi jure fa- vebo." The ancients pronounced coce and quoque like cu-ke, wliich alhides to the Latin cocus, qook, besides the anibi;!;uity oi' jure, wliich applies to brolh or law— jus. A Sicilian sus- pected of being a Jew, attempted to get the ciiuse of Venes into his own hanils ; Cicero, who kneAv that he was a creatuie of the great culprit, opposed him, observing " What has a Jew to do with swine's flesh ? " The Romans called a btKir pig Verres. I regi'et to afford a respectable authority tor forensic puns ; however, to have degraded liis adversaries by such petty personalities, only proves that Cicei'o's taste was not exquisite. There is something very original in Montaigne's censure of Cicero. Cotton's translation is admii-able. "Boldly to confess the truth, his way of writing, and that of all other long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious ; for his preface, definitions, divisions, and etymologies, take up tlie greatest part of his work : whatever there is of life and marrow, is smothered and lost in the preparation. "When I have spent an hour in reading him, which is a great deal for me, and recollect what I have thence extracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find nothing but wind : for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, and the reasons that should properly help to loose the knot 1 would untie. For me, who only desired to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotehan dis- quisitions of poets are of no use. I look for good and sohd rea- sons at the fii-st dash. I am for discourses that give the first chaige into the heart of the doubt ; his languish about the sub- iect, and delay our expectation. Those are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may awake a (juarter of an hour after, time enough to find again the thread of the discourse. It is necessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has a design, right or wrong, to incline to favour his cause ; to children and 128 PREFACES. common people, to whom a man must say all he can. I would not have an author make it his business to render me attentive ; or that he should cry out fifty times yes ! as the clerks and heralds do. " As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, learning excepted, he had no great natural parts. He was a good citizen, of an affable nature, as all fat heavy men — (gras et gausseuTs are the words in the original, meaning perhaps broad jokers, for Cicero was not fat) — such as he was, usually are ; but given to ease, and had a mighty share of vanity and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking his poetiy fit to be published. 'T is no great imper- fection to write ill verses ; but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy bad verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his eloquence, that is totally out of comparison, and I believe will never be equalled." PREFACES. A PREFACE, being the entrance to a book, should invite by its beauty. An elegant porch announces the splendour of the interior. I have observed that ordinary readers skip over these little elaborate compositions. The ladies consider them as so many pages lost, which might better be employed in the addition of a picturesque scene, or a tender letter to their novels. For my part I always gather amusement from a preface, be it awkwardly or skilfully written ; for dulness, or impertinence, may raise a laugh for a page or two. A pref- ace is frequently a superior composition to the work itself: for, long before the days of Johnson, it had been a custom for many authors to solicit for this department of their work the ornamental contribution of a man of genius. Cicero tells his friend Atticus, that he had a volume of prefaces or introduc- tions always ready by him to be used as circumstances re. PREFACES. 129 quired. These must have been like our periodical essays. A good preface is as essential to put the reader into good humour, as a good prologue is to a play, or a fine symphony to an opera, containing something analogous to the work itself; so tliat we may feel its want as a desire not elsewhere to be gratified. The Italians call the preface La salsa del libro, the sauce of the book, and if well seasoned it creates an appetite in the reader to devour the book itself. A preface badly composed prejudices the reader against the work. Authors are not equally fortunate in these little intro- ductions; some can compose volumes more skilfully than prefaces, and others can finish a preface who could never be capable of finishing a book. On a very elegant preface prefixed to an ill-written book, it was observed that they ought never to have come together ; but a sarcastic wit remarked that he considered such mar- riages were allowable, for they were not of kin. In prefaces an affected liaughtiness or an affected humility are alike despicable. There is a deficient dignity in Robert- son's ; but the haughtiness is now to our purpose. This is called by the French, " la morgue litteraire" the surly pom- posity of hterature. It is sometimes used by writers who have succeeded in their first work, while the failure of their subsequent productions appears to have given them a literary hypochondriasm. Dr. Armstrong, after his classical poem, never shook hands cordially with the public for not relishing his barren labours. In the preface to his lively " Sketches" he tells us, " he could give them much bolder strokes as well as more delicate touches, but that he dreads the danger of writing too well, and feels the value of his own labour too sensibly to bestow it upon the mobility." This is pure milk compared to the gall in the preface to his poems. There he tells us, "that at last he has taken the trouble to collect them! Wliat he lias destroyed would, probably enough, have been better received by the great majority of readers. But he has always most heartily despised their opinion." These prefaces vox,. I. 9 130 EARLY PRINTING. remind one of the prologi galeati, prefaces with a helmet ! as St. Jerome entitles the one to his Version of the Scriptures. These armed prefaces were formerly very common in the age of literary controversy ; for half the business of an author consisted then, either in replying, cr anticipating si reply to the attacks of his opponent. Prefaces ought to be dated ; as these become, after a series of editions, leading and useful circumstances in literary history. Fuller with quaint humour observes on Indexes — "An Index is a necessary implement, and no impediment of a book, except in the same sense wherein the carriages of an army are termed Impedimenta. Without this, a large author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the reader therein. I confess there is a lazy kind of learning which is only Indi' cal ; when scholars (like adders which only bite the horse's heels) nibble but at the tables, which are calces librorum, neglecting the body of the book. But though the idle deserve uo crutches (let not a staff be used by them, but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit thereof, and industrious scholars prohibited the accommodation of an index, most used by those who most pretend to contemn it." EARLY PRINTING. There is some probability that this art originated in China, where it was practised long before it was known in Europe. Some I^uropean traveller might have imported the hint. That the Romans did not practise the art of printing cannot but excite our astonishment, since they actually used it, un- conscious of their rich possession. I have seen Roman stereotypes, or immovable printing types, with which they Stamped their pottery. How in daily practising the art, though confined to this object, it did not occur to so ingenious EARLY PRINTING. 13] a people to print their literary works, is not easily to be accounted for. Did the wise and grave senate dread those inconveniences which attend its indiscriminate use ? Or per- haps they did not care to deprive so large a body of scribes of their business. Not a hint of the art itself appears in their writings. , When first the art of printing was discovered, they only made use of one side of a leaf; they had not yet found out the expedient of impressing the other. Afterwards they thought of pasting the blank sides, which made them appear like one leaf. Their blocks were made of soft woods, and their letters were carved ; but frequently breaking, the ex- pense and trouble of carving and gluing new letters suggested our movable types, which have produced an almost miracu lous celerity in this art. The modern stereotype, consisting of entire pages in solid blocks of metal, and, not being liable to break like the soft wood at fii'st used, has been profitably employed for works which require to be frequently reprinted. Printing in carved blocks of wood must have greatly retarded the progress of universal knowledge : for one set of types could only have produced one work, whereas it now serves for hundreds. When their editions were intended to be curious, they omitted to print the initial letter of a chapter ; they left that blank space to be painted or illuminated, to the fancy of the purchaser. Several ancient volumes of these early times have been found where these letters are wanting, as they neglected to have them painted. The initial carved letter, which is generally a fine wood- cut, among our printed books, is evidently a remains or imi- tation of these ornaments. Among the very earliest books printed, which were religious, the Poor Man's Bible has wooden cuts in a coarse style, without the least shadowing or crossing of strokes, and these they inelegantly daubed over with broad colours, which they termed illuminating, and sold at a cheap rate to those who could not afford to purchase 132 EARLY PRINTING. costl}' missals elegantly written and painted on vellum. Specimens of these rude efforts of illuminated prints may be seen in Strutt's Dictionary of Engravers. The Bodleian library possesses the originals. In the productions of early printing may be distinguished the various splendid editions of Primers, or Prayer-books. Tliese were embellished with cuts finished in a most elegant taste : many of them were grotesque or obscene. In one of them an angel is represented crowning the Virgin Mary, and God the Father himself assisting at the ceremony. Some- times St. Michael is overcoming Satan ; and sometimes Su Anthony is attacked by various devils of most clumsy forms — not of the grotesque and Umber family of Callot ! Printing was gradually practised throughout Europe from the year 1440 to 1500. Caxton and his successor Wynkyii de Worde were our own earliest printers. Caxton was a wealthy merchant, who, in 14G4, being sent by Edward IV. to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Duke of Burgundy, returned to his country with this invaluable art. Notwith- standing his mercantile habits, he possessed a literary taste, and his first work was a translation from a French historical miscellany. The tradition of the Devil and Dr. Faustus was said to have been derived from the odd circumstance in which the Bibles of the first printer, Fust, appeared to the world ; but if Dr. Faustus and Faustus the printer are two different persons, the tradition becomes suspicious, though, in some respects, it ha» a foundation in truth. When Fust had dis- covered this new art, and printed off a considerable number of copies of the Bible to imitate those which were commonly sold as MSS., he undertook the sale of them at Pari:!. It was his interest to conceal this discovery, and to pass off his printed copies for MSS. But, enabled to sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes demanded five hundred, this raised universal astonishment ; and still more wlien he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even low- EAKLY PRINTING. lyg ered his price. The uniformity of the copies increased the wonder. Informations were given in to the magistrates against him as a magician ; and in searching his lodgings a gi-eat number of copies were found. The red ink, and Fust's red ink is peculiarly brilliant, which embellished his copies, was said to be his blood ; and it was solemnly adjudged that he was in league ^Wth the Infemals. Fust at length was obliged, to save himself from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Par- liament of Paris, who discharged him from all prosecution in consideration of the wondei-ful invention. When the art of printing was established, it became the glory of the learned to be correctors of the press to eminent printers. Physicians, la^vyers, and bishops themselves occu- pied this department. The printers then added frequently to their names those of the correctors of the press ; and editions were then valued according to the abilities of the corrector. The prices of books in these times were considered as an object w^orthy of the animadversions of the highest powers. Tliid anxiety in favour of the studious appears from a privi- lege of Pope Leo X. to Aldus Manutius for printing Yarro, dated 1553, signed Cardinal Bembo. Aldus is exhorted to put a moderate price on the work, lest the Pope should with- draw his privilege, and accord it to others. Robert Stephens, one of the early printers, surpassed in correctness those who exercised the same profession. To render his editions immaculate, he hung up the proofs in public places, and generously recompensed those who were 80 fortunate as to detect any errata. Plantin, though a learned man, is more famous as a printer. His printing-office was one of the wonders of Europe. This grand building was the chief ornament of the city of Ant- werp. Magnificent in its structure, it presented to the spec- tator a countless number of presses, characters of all figures and all sizes, matrixes to cast letters, and aU other printing materials ; wliich Baillet assures us amounted to immense Bimis. 134 EARLY PRINTING. In Italy, the three Manutii were more sohcitous of correct- ness and illustrations than of the beauty of their printing. They were ambitious of the chai'acter of the scholar, not of the printer. It is much to be regretted that our publishers are not liter- ary men, able to form their own critical decisions. Among the learned printers formerly, a book was valued because it came from the presses of an Aldus or a Stephens ; and even in our own time the names of Bowyer and Dodsley sanc- tioned a work. Pelisson, in his history of the French Acad- emy, mentions that Camusat was selected as their bookseller, from his reputation for publishing only valuable works. " He was a man of some literature and good sense, and rarely printed an indifferent work ; and when we were young I recollect that we always made it a rule to pui'chase his pub- lications. His name was a test of the goodness of the work." A publisher of this character would be of the greatest utihty to the literary world : at home he would induce a number of ingenious men to become authors, for it would be honourable to be inscribed in his catalogue ; and it would be a direction for the continental reader. So valuable a union of learnmg and printing did not, un- fortunately, last. The printers of the seventeenth century became less charmed with glory than with gain. Their cor- rectors and their letters evinced as little deUcacy of choice. The invention of what is now called the Italic letter in printing was made by Aldus Manutius, to whom learning owes much. He observed the many inconveniences result- ing from the vast number of abbreviatiotis, which were then 60 frequent among the printers, that a book was difficult to understand ; a treatise was actually written on the art of reading a printed book, and this addressed to the learned ! He contrived an expedient, by which these abbreviations might be entirely got rid of, and yet books suffer little in- crease in bulk. This he effected by introducing what is now called the Italic letter, though it formerly was distinguished by the name of the inventor, and called the Aldine. ERRATA. 135 ERRATA. Besides the ordinary errata, which happen in printing a work, others have been purposely committed, that the errata may contain what is not permitted to api)ear in the body of the work. Wherever the Inquisition had any power, partic- ularly at Rome, it was not allowed to employ the word /«<«»?, or fata, in any book. An author, desirous of using the latter word, adroitly invented this scheme : he had printed in his book facta, and, in the errata, he put, " For facta, read fata" Scarron has done the same thing on another occasion. lie had composed some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication — A GuiUemette, Cliienne de ma Soeur ; but having a quarrel with his sister, he maliciously put into the errata, " Instead of Chicnne de ma Soeur, read ma Chienne de Sceur." LuUy at the close of a bad prologue said, the word fin du prologue was an erratum, it should have been fi du pro- logue / In a book, there was printed, le docte Morel. A wag put into the errata, " For le docte Morel, read le Docteur Morel" This Morel was not the first docteur not docte. When a fanatic published a mystical work full of unintel- ligible raptures, and which he entitled Les Deltces de VEs- prit, it was proposed to print in his errata, " For Delices read Delires." The author of an idle and imperfect book ended with the usual phrase of cetera desiderantur, one altered it, Non de- $iderantur seddesunt ; " The rest is wanting, but not wanted." At the close of a silly book, the author as usual printed the word Finis. — A wit put this among the errata, with this pointed couplet : Finis ! — an error, or a lie, my friend ! In writing foolish books — there is no End I 136 ERRATA. In the year 1561, was printed a work, entitled "the Anat- omy of the Mass." It is a thin octavo, of 172 pages, and it is accompanied by an Errata of 15 pages ! The editor, a pious monk, informs us that a very serious reason induced him to undertake this task : for it is, says lie, to forestall the artifices of Satan. He supposes that the Devil, to ruin the fruit of this work, employed two very malicious frauds : the first before it was printed, by drenching the MS. in a kennel, and having reduced it to a most pitiable state, rendered sev- eral parts illegible : the second, in obliging the printers to .commit such numerous blunders, never yet equalled in so small a work. To combat this double machination of Satan he was obliged carefully to re-peruse the work, and to form this singular list of the blunders of printers, under the influ- ence of Satan. All this he relates in au advertisement pre- fixed to the Errata. A furious controversy raged between two famous scholars from a very laughable but accidental Erratum, and threat- ened serious consequences to one of the parties. Flavigny wrote two letters, criticizing rather freely a polyglot Bible edited by Abraham Ecchellensis. As this learned editor had sometimes censured the labours of a friend of Flavigny, this latter applied to him the third and fifth verses of the seventh chapter of St. Matthew, which he printed in Latin. Ver. 3. Quid vides festucam in OCULO fratris tui, et trabem in OCULO tuo non vides ? Ver. 5. Ejice primum trnbem de OCULO tuo, et tunc videbis ejicere festucam de OCVLO fratris tui. Ecchellensis opens his reply by accusing Flavigny of an enormous crime committed in this passage ; attempting to correct the sacred text of the Evangelist, and daring to re- ject a word, while he supplied its place by another as impious as obscene! This crime, exaggerated with all the virulence of an angry declaimer, closes with a dreadful accusation. Flavigny's morals are attacked, and his reputation over- turned by a horrid imputation. Yet all this terrible re- proach is only founded on an Erratum! The whole ai'ose ERRATA. 137 from the printer having negh'gentlj suffered the jirst letter of the word Oculo to have dropped from the form when he happened to touch a line with his finger, which did not stand straight ! He published another letter to do awaj the impu- tation of Ecchellensis ; but thirty years afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished ; the wits were always reminding him of it. Of all literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the Vulgate, by Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully super- intended every sheet as it passed through the press ; and, to the amazement of the world, the work remained without a rival — it swarmed with errata! A multitude of scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages, in order to give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these patches ; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal infallibility ! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to suppress it ; a few still remain for the rap- tures of the biblical collectors ; not long ago the bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty guineas — not too much for a mere book of blunders! The world was highly amused at the bull of the editorial Pope prefixed to the first volume, which excommunicates all printers who in reprinting the work should make any alteration in the text ! In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethi- opic language, which proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured reason — " They who printed the work could not read, and we could not print ; they helped us, and we helped them, as the blind helps the blind." A printer's widow in Germany, while a new edition of the Bible was printing at her house, one night took an opportu- nity of stealing into the office, to alter that sentence of subjec- tion to her husband, pronounced upon Eve in Genesis, chap. 3, V. 16. She took out the first two letters of the word Heur, and substituted Na in their place, thus altering the sentence from "and he shall be thy Lord" (Herr), to "and he shall be thy Fool " {Narr). It is said her life paid tor 138 ERRATA. this intentional erratum ; and that some secreted copies of this edition have been bought up at enormous prices. "We have an edition of the Bible, known by the name of The Vinegar Bible ; from the erratum in the title to the 20th Chap, of St. Luke, in which " Parable of the Vineyard" is printed " Parable of the Vinegar" It was printed in 1717, at the Clarendon press. We have had another, where " Thou shalt commit adul- tery " was printed, omitting the negation ; which occasioned the archbishop to lay one of the heaviest penalties on the Company of Stationers that was ever recorded in the annals of literary history. Herbert Croft used to complain of the incorrectness of our English classics, as reprinted by the booksellers. It is evi- dent some stupid printer often changes a whole text inten- tionally. The fine description by Akenside of the Pantheon, " SEVERELY great," not hemg understood by the blockhead, was printed serenely great. Swift's own edition of " The City Shower," has "old aches throb." Aches is two sylla- bles, but modern printers, who had lost the right pronuncia- tion, have aches as one syllable ; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in " aches will throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist wish to preserve is altered, and finally lost. It appears by a calculation made by the printer of Stee- vens's edition of Shakspeare, that every octavo page of that work, text and notes, contains 2,680 distinct pieces of metal ; which in a sheet amount to 42,880 — the misplacing of any one of which would inevitably cause a blunder ! With this curious fact before us, the accurate state of our printing, in general, is to be admired, and errata ought more freely to be pardoned than the fastidious minuteness of the insect eye of certain critics has allowed. Whether such a miracle as an immaculate edition of a classical author does exist, I have never learnt; but an at- tempt has been made to obtain this glorious singularity — and PATRONS. 139 was as nearly realized as is perhaps possible in the magnifi- cent edition of Os Lvsiadas of Camoens, by Dom Joze Souza, in 1817. Tiiis amateur spared no prodigality of cost and labour, and flattered himself, that by the assistance of Didot, not a single typographical error should be found in that splendid volume. But an error was afterwards discov- ered in some of the copies, occasioned by one of the letters in the word Lusitano having got misplaced during the work- ing of one of the sheets. It must be confessed that this was an accident or misfortune — rather than an Erratum! One of the most remarkable complaints on errata is that of Edw. Leigh, appended to his curious treatise on " Religion and Learning." It consists of two folio pages, in a very minute character, and exhibits an incalculable number of printers' blunders. " We have not," he says, " Plantin nor Stephens amongst us ; and it is no easy task to specify the chiefest errata ; false interpunctions there are too many ; here a letter wanting, there a letter too much ; a syllable too much, one letter for another ; words parted where they should be joined ; words joined which should be severed ; words mis- placed ; chronological mistakes," &c. This unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are we to infer, by such frequent complaints of the authors of that day, that either they did not receive proofs from the printers, or that the printers never attended to the corrected proofs ? Each single erra- tum seems to have been felt as a stab to the literary feelings of the poor author. PATRONS. Authors have too frequently received ill treatment, even fi'om those to whom they dedicated their works. Some who felt hurt at the shameless treatment of such mock Miecenases have observed that no writer should dedi- cate his works but to his friends, as was practised by the 140 PATRONS. ancients, who usually addressed those who had .solicited their labours, or animated their progress. Theodosius Gaza had no other recompense for having inscribed to Sixtus IV. his translation of the book of Aristotle on the Nature of Animals, than the price of the binding, which this charitable father of the church munificently bestowed upon him. Theocritus fiUs his IdyUiums with loud complaints of the neglect of liis patrons ; and Tasso was as httle successful in his dedications. Ariosto, in presenting his Orlando Furioso to the Cardinal d'Estc, was gratified with the bitter sarcasm of — " Dove dia- volo avcte pigliato tante coglionerie ? " Where the devil have you found all this nonsense ? When the French historian Dupleix, whose pen was in- deed fertile, presented his book to the Duke d'Epernon, this Maecenas, turning to the Pope's Nuncio, who was present, very coai'sely exclaimed — " Cadedids ! ce monsieur a un flux enrage, il chie un hvre toutes les lunes ! " Thomson, the ardent author of the Seasons, having ex- travagantly praised a person of rank, who afterwards ap- peared to be undeserving of eulogiums, properly employed his pen in a solemn recantation of his error. A very different conduct from that of Dupleix, who always spoke highly of Queen INIargaret of France for a little place he held in her household : but after her death, when the place became extinct, spoke of her with aU the freedom of satire. Such is too often the character of some of the literati, who only dare to reveal the truth when they have no interest to conceal it. Poor Mickle, to whom we are indebted for so beautiful a version of Camoens's Lusiad, having dedicated this work, the continued labour of five yeai-s, to the Duke of Buccleugh, had the mortification to find, by the discovery of a friend, that he had kept it in his possession tlu-ee weeks befoi'e he could collect sufficient intellectual desire to cut open the pages ! The neglect of this nobleman reduced the poet to a state of PATRONS. 141 despondency. This patron was a political economist, thft pupil of Adam Smith ! It is pleasing to add, in contrast with this fi'igid Scotch patron, that when Mickle went tc Lisbon, where his translation had long preceded his visit, he found the Prince of Portugal waiting on the quay to be the drst to receive the translator of his great national poem ; and durmg a residence of six months, Mickle was warmly re- garded by every Portuguese nobleman. " Every man believes," writes Dr. Johnson, to Baretti, " that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron." A patron is sometimes oddly obtained. Bensei-ade at- tached himself to Cardinal Mazarin ; but his friendship produced nothing but civility. The poet every day indulged liis easy and chm-ming vein of amatory and panegyrical poetry, while all the world read and admired his verses. One evening the cardinal, in conversation with the king, described his mode of life when at the papal court. He loved the sciences ; but his chief occupation was the belles lettres, composing httle pieces of poetry ; he said that he was then in the court of Rome what Benserade was now in that of France. Some hours afterwards, the friends of the poet related to him the conversation of the cardinal. He quitted them abruptly, and ran to the apartment of his eminence, knocking with all his force, that he might be certain of being heard. The cardinal had just gone to bed ; but he inces- santly clamoured, demanding entrance ; they were compelled to open the door. He ran to his eminence, fell upon his knees, almost pulled otf the sheets of the bed in rapture, imploring a thousand pardons for thus disturbing him ; but such was his joy in what he had just heard, which he re- peated, that he could not refrain from immediately giving vent to his gratitude and his pride, to have been compared with his eminence for his poetical talents ! Had the door not been immediately opened, he should have expired ; he was not rich, it is true, but he should now die contented ' 142 POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, The cardinal was pleased with his ardour, and probably never suspected his Jiattery ; and the next week our new actor was pensioned. On Cardinal Richelieu, another of his patx'ons, he grate- fully made this epitaph : — Cy gist, ouy gist, par la mort bleu, Le Cardinal de Richelieu, Et ce qui cause mon ennuy Ma PENSION avec lui. Here lies, egad, 'tis very true. The illustrious Cardinal Richelieu : My grief is genuine — void of whim I Alas ! my pension lies with him! Le Brun, the great French artist, painted himself holding in his hand the portrait of his earliest patron. In this ac- companiment the Artist may be said to have portrayed the features of his soul. If genius has too often complained of its patrons, has it not also often over-valued their pro- tection ? POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT. Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to display their powers. "It was at Rome," says Gibbon, "on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started to my mind." Father Malebranche having completed his studies in phi losophy and theology without any other intention than de- voting himself to some religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and turning over a pai'cel of MADE BY ACCIDENT. 143 books, L Homme de Descartes fell into his hands. Having dipt into parts, he read with such delight, that the palpha- tions of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was this circumstance that produced those profound contem- plations which made him the Plato of his age. Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apart ment he found, when very young, Spenser's Fairy Queen ; and, by a continual study of poetry, he became so enchanted by the Muse, that he grew irrecoverably a poet. Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness for his art ex- cited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise. Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was first determined by an accident : when young, he frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor ; and wliile she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness ! In this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused ; he approached the clock-case, and studied its met. lanism ; what he could not discover he guessed at. He tnen pro- jected a similar machine ; and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he proceeded in his various attempts ; and the genius, which thus could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton. Accident determined the taste of Moliere for the stage. His grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The young man lived in dissipation ; the father observing it asked in anger, if his son was to be made an actor. " Would to God," replied the grandfather, " he were as good an actor as Monrose." The words struck young Moliere, he took a disgust to his tapestry trade, and it is to this circumstance France owes her greatest comic writer. Corneille loved ; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet, composed Melite and afterwards liis other celebrated works. The discreet Corneille had else remained a lawyer. We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivia] 144 POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, accident. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during th<; time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the stroke. This led liim to consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies ; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his philosophy. Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman, who was dan- gerously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints during his illness, instead of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order ; whence originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits. Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated declamation against the arts and sciences. A circumstance which decided his future literary efforts. La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession, or devoted himself to any pui-suit. Having acci- dentally heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely delighted with this poet that, after passing the nights in treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in the day-time to the woods, where, concealing himself, he would recite his verses to the surrounding dryads. Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book De Sphtera having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of Wil- loughby's work on birds. The same accident of finding, on tlie table of his professor, Reaumur's History of Insects, MADE BY ACCIDENT. 145 which he read more than he attended to the lecture, and, having been refused the loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet, that he hastened to obtain a copy ; after many difficulties in procuring this costly work, its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life. This nat- uralist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to the microscope. Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident. " I found a work of De Foe's, entitled an ' Essay on Projects,' from which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life." I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his Schoolmaster, one of the few works among our elder writers, which we still read with pleasure. At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil, at his apartments at Windsor, a number of ingenious men were invited. Sec- retary Cecil communicated the news of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary ; severe in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defence of hard flogging. Dr. Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the secretary. Sir John Mason, adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted Sir William Petre, and adduced, as an evidence, that the best schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed, that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing to the boy's genius, and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Rich- ard Sackville was silent, but when Ascham after dinner went to the queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside, and frankly told him that, though he had taken no part in the debate, he would not have been absent from that conversation for a gi-eat deal ; that he knew to his VOL. 1. 10 146 INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS. cost the truth that Ascham had supported ; for it was the perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster that had given him an unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Aschara to write his observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which pi-oduced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham. INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS. Singular inequalities are observable in the labours of genius ; and particularly in those which admit great enthu- siasm, as in poetry, in painting, and in music. Faultless mediocrity, industry can preserve in one continued degree ; but excellence, the daring and the happy, can only be at- tained, by human faculties, by starts. Our poets who possess the greatest genius, with perhaps the least industry, have at the same time the most splendid and the worst passages of poetry. Shakspeare and Dryden are at once the greatest and the least of our poets. With some, their great fault consists in having none. Carraccio sarcastically said of Tintoret — Ho veduto il Tin- toretto hora eguale a Titiano, hora minore del Tintoretto — " I have seen Tintoret now equal to Titian, and now less than Tintoret." Trublet justly observes — The more there are beauties and great beauties in a work, I am the less surprised to find faults and great faults. When you say of a work that it has many faults, that decides nothing : and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable or excellent. You tell me of another, that it is without any faults : if your account be just, it is certain the work cannot be excellent. It was observed of one pleader, that he knew more than he said; and of another, that he said more than he knew. GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE. 147 Lucian happily describes the works of those who abound with the most luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity " anemone-words ; " for anemonies ai'e flowers, which, however brilliant, only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the daisy ; a flower in- deed common enough, and without odour. GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE. There are many sciences, says Menage, on which we cannot indeed compose in a floi'id or elegant diction, such as geography, music, algebra, geometry, t&c. When Atticus requested Cicero to write on geography, the latter excused himseif, observing that its scenes were more adapted to please the eye than susceptible of the embellishments of style. However, in these kinds of sciences, we may lend an ornament to their dryness by introducing occasionally some elegant allusion, or noticing some incident suggested by the object. Thus when we notice some inconsiderable place, for in- stance Woodstock, we may recall attention to the residence of Chaucer, the parent of our poetry, or the romantic laby- rinth of Rosamond ; or as in '* an Autumn on the Rhine," at Ingelheim, at the view of an old palace built by Charle- ma^ne, the traveller adds, with " a hundred columns broui'esent to you, and by wliich I have resolved to close my long and laborious course. It is indeed my master-piece ! and the most finished work that ever came from my pen ; for whether we examine the fable, the manners, the sentiments, or the versification, it is certain that I never pei-fonned any thing so just, so great, nor more beautiful ; and if my labours could ever deserve a crown, I would claim it for this work ! " The actions of this singular personage were in unison Mith his writings : he gives a pompous description of a most un- important government which he obtained near Marseilles, but all the grandeur existed only in our author's heated imagination. Bachaumont and de la Chapelle describe it, in their playful " Voyage : " Mais il faut voiis parler du fort, Qui sans doute est une merveille; C'est notre dame de la garde ! Gouvernement commode et beau, A qui suffit pour tout garde, Un Suisse avec sa hallebarde Peint sur la porte du chateau ! A fort very commodiously guarded ; only requiring one sen- tinel with his halbert — painted on the door ! In a poem on his disgust with the world, he tells us how intimate he has been with princes : Europe has known him through all her provmces ; he ventured every thing in a thousand combats : L'on me vit obe!r, Ton me vit commander, £t mon poll tout poudreux a blanchi sous les armes ; J72 DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. n est pen dc beaux arts oil je ne sois instniit; En prose et en vers, mon nom fit quelque bruit; Et par plus d'un chemin je parvLns a la gloire. IMITATED. Princes were proud my friendship to proclaim. And Europe gazed, where'er her hero camel I grasp' d the laurels of heroic strife. The thousand perils of a soldier's life; Obedient in the ranks each toilful day! Though heroes soon command, they first obey. 'T was not for me, too long a time to yield ! Bom for a chieftain in the tented field ! Around my plumed helm, my silvery hair Hung like an honour'd wreath of age and care! The finer arts have chai-m'd my studious hours. Versed in their mysteries, skilful in their powers; In verse and prose my equal genius glow'd, Pursuing glory by no single road ! Such was the vain George Scudery! whose heart, how- ever, was warm : poverty could never degrade him ; adversity never broke down his magnanimous spirit ! DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. The maxims of this noble author are in the hands of every one. To those who choose to derive every motive and every action from the solitary principle of self-love, they are inestimable. They form one continued satire on human nature ; but they are not reconcilable to the feelings of the man of better sympathies, or to him who passes through life with the firm integrity of virtue. Even at court we find a Sully, a Malesherbes, and a Clarendon, as well as a Roche- foucault and a Chesterfield. The Duke de la Rochefoucault, says Segrais, had not studied ; but he was endowed with a wonderful degree of discernment, and knew the world perfectly well. This PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL. 173 afforded Iiim opportunities of making reflections, and reducing into maxims those discoveries which he had made in the heart of man, of which he displayed an admirable knowl- edge. It is perhaps worthy of observation, that this celebrated French duke could never summon resolution, at his election, to address the Academy. Although chosen a member, he never entered, for such was his timidity, that he could not face an audience and deliver the usual compliment on his introduction ; he whose courage, whose birth, and whose genius, were alike distinguished. The fact is, as appears by Mad. de Sevigne, that Rochefoucault lived a close domestic life ; there must be at least as much theoretical as practical knowledge in the opinions of such a retired philosopher. Chesterfield, our English Eochefoucault, we are also informed, possessed an admirable knowledge of the heart of man ; and he too has drawn a similar picture of human nature. These are two noble authors whose chief studies seem to have been made in courts. May it not be possible, allowing these authors not to have written a sentence of apocrypha, that the fault lies not so much in human nature as in the satellites of Power breathing their corrupt atmos- phere ? PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL. "Were we to investigate the genealogy of our best modem Btories, we should often discover the illegitimacy of our fa- vourites ; and retrace them frequently to the East. My well- read friend Douce, had collected materials for such a work. The genealogies of tales would have gratified the curious in literature. The story of the ring of Hans Carvel is of very ancient standing, as are most of the tales of this kind. Menage says that Poggius, who died in 1459, has the 174 TRIOR'S HANS CARVEL. merit of its invention ; but I suspect he only related a very popular story. Rabelais, who has given it in his peculiar manner, changed its original name of Philelphus to that of Hans Carvel. This title is likewise in the eleventh of Les Cent Nouvellcs Nouvelles collected in 1461, for the amusement of Louis XI. when Dauphin, and living in solitude. Ariosto has borrowed it, at the end of his fifth Satire ; but Las fairly appropriated it by his pleasant manner. In a collection of novels at Lyons, in 1555, it is introduced into the eleventh novel. Celio Malespini has it again in page 288 of the second part of his Two Hundred Novels, printed at Venice in 1G09. Fontaine has prettily set it off, and an anonymous writer has composed it in Latin Anacreontic verses; and at length our Prior has given it with equal gaiety and freedom. After Ariosto, La Fontaine, and Prior, let us hear of it no more ; yet this has been done, in a manner, however, which here cannot be told. Voltaire has a curious essay to show that most of our best modern stories and plots originally belonged to the eastern nations, a fact which has been made more evident by recent researches. The Amphitryon of Moliere was an imitation of Plautus, who borrowed it from the Greeks, and they took it from the Indians ! It is given by Dow in his History of Hindostan. In Captain Scott's Tales and Anecdotes from Arabian writers, we are surprised at finding so many of our favourites very ancient orientalists. — The Ephesian Matron, versified by La Fontaine, was borrowed from the Italians ; it is to be found in Petronius, and Petro- nius had it from the Greeks. But where did the Greeks find it ? In the Arabian Tales ! And from whence did the Arabian fabulists borrow it? From the Chinese! It is found in Du Halde, who collected it from the Versions of the Jesuits. THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS. 175 THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS. A MAN of letters, more intent on the acquisitions of litera- ture than on the intrigues of politics, or the speculations of commerce, may find a deeper solitude in a populous metropo- lis than in the seclusion of the country. The student, who is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in the heart of the fashion- able world : " I had not been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock every door and every bosom. While coaches were rattling through Bond-sti-eet, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books. I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." And even after he had published the first volume of his History, he observes that in London his confinement was solitary and sad ; " the many forgot my existence when they saw me no longer at Brookes's, and the few who sometimes had a thought on their friend were detained by business or pleasure, and I was proud and happy if I could prevail on my bookseller, Elmsly, to enliven the dulness of the evening." A situation, very elegantly described in the beautifully polished verses of Mr. Rogers, in his "Epistle to a Friend:" When from his classic dreams the student steals Amid the buz of crowds, the whirl of wheels, To muse unnoticed, while around him press 'Ihe meteor-forms of equipage and dress; Alone in wonder lost, he seems to stand A very stranger in his native land. He compares the student to one of the Seven Sleepers in the ancient legend. Descartes residing in the commercial city of Amslerdam 176 THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS. writing to Balzac, illustrates these descriptions with great force and vivacity. " You wish to retire ; and your intention is to seek the solitude of the Chartreux, or, possibly, some of the most beautiful provinces of France and Italy. I would rather advise you, if you wish to observe mankind, and at the same time to lose yourself in the deepest solitude, to join me in Amsterdam. I prefer this situation to that even of your de- licious villa, where I spent so great a part of the last year ; for, however agreeable a country-house may be, a thousand little conveniences are wanted, which can only be found in a city. One is not alone so frequently in the country as one could wish : a number of impertinent visitors are continually besieging you. Here, as all the world, except myself, is oc- cupied in commerce, it depends merely on myself to live un- known to the world. I walk every day amongst immense ranks of people, with as much tranquillity as you do in your green alleys. The men I meet with make the same impres- sion on my mind as would the trees of your forests, or the flocks of sheep grazing on your common. The busy hum too of these merchants does not disturb one more than the pur- ling of your brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contem- plating their anxious motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing those men who cultivate your land ; for I reflect that the end of all their labours is to embellish the city which I inhabit, and to anticipate all my wants. If you contemplate with delight the fruits of your orchards, with all the rich promises of abundance, do you think I feel less in observing so many fleets that convey to me the pro- ductions of either India ? What spot on earth could you find, which, like this, can so interest your vanity and gratify vour taste ? " THE TALMUD, ]77 THE TALMUD. The Jews have their Talmud ; the Catholics their Legends of Saints; and the Tukks their Sonnaii. The Protestant has nothing but his Bible. The former are three kindred works. Men have imagined that the more there is to be believed, the more are the merits of the be- liever. Hence all traditiomsts formed the orthodox and the strongest party. The word of God is lost amidst those heaps of human inventions, sanctioned by an order of men con- nected with religious duties; they ought now, howe\er, to be regarded rather as Curiosities of Literature. I give a sufficiently ample account of the Talmud and the Le- gends ; but of the Sonnah I only know that it is a collec- tion of the traditional opinions of the Turkis-h prophets, di- recting the observance of petty superstitions not mentioned in the Koran. The Talmud is a collection of Jewish traditions which have been orally preserved. It comprises the Mishna, which is the text; and the Gemara, its commentary. The whole forms a complete system of the learning, ceremonies, civil, and canon laws of the Jews ; treating indeed on all subjects; even gardening, manual arts, &c. The rigid Jews persuaded themselves that these traditional explications are of divine origin. The Pentateuch, say they, was written out by tlieir legislator before his death in thirteen copies, distrib- uted among the twelve tribes, and the remaining one deposit- ed in the Ark. The oral law Moses continually taught m the Sanhedrim, to the elders and the rest of the people. The law was repeated four times ; but the interpretation was de- livered only by word of moiith from generation to generation. Li the fortieth year of the flight from Egyi)t, the memory of the people became treacherous, and Moses was constrained to repeat this oral law, which iiad been conveyed by succes- sive traditionists. Such is the account of honest David Levi; VOL. I. 12 178 THE TALMUD. it is the creed of every rabbin. — David believed in every thinf;, but in Jesus. This liistory of the Talmud some inclined to suppose apocryphal, even among a few of the Jews themselves. When these traditions first appeared, the keenest controversy has never been able to determine. It cannot be denied that there existed traditions among the Jews in the time of Jesus Christ. About the second century, they were industiiously collected by Rabbi Juda the Holy, the prince of the rabbins, who enjoyed the favour of Antoninus Pius. He has the merit of giving some order to this multifarious collection. It appears that the Talmud was compiled by certain Jew- ish doctors, who were solicited for this purpose by their nation, that they might have something to oppose to their Christian adversaries. The learned W. Wotton, in his curious " Discourses " on the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, supplies an analy- sis of this vast collection ; he has translated entire two divis- ions of this code of traditional laws, with the oiiglnal text and the notes. There are two Talmuds : the Jerusalem and the Baby- lonian. The last is the most esteemed, because it is the most bulky. R. Juda, the prince of the rabbins, committed to writing all these traditions, and arranged them under six general heads, called orders or classes. The subjects are indeed curious for philosophical inquirers, and multifarious as the events of civil life. Every order is formed of treatises ; every treatise is divided into chapters; every chapter into mishnas, which word means mixtures or miscellanies, in the form of aphorisms. In the first part is discussed what relates to seeds, fruits, and trees ; in the second, ^eos^s ; in the third, taomen, their duties, their disorders, marriages, di- vorces, contracts, and nuptials ; in the fourth, are treated the damages or losses sustained by beasts or men ; of things found ; deposits ; usuries ; rents ; farms ; 'partnerships in THE TALMUD. I79 commerce ; inheritance ; sales and purchases ; oaths ; wit- nesses ; arrests ; idolatry ; ami liere are named those by wlium the oral law was leceived and preserved. In the filth part are noticed sacrifices and holy thi»gs ; and the sixth treats of pnrijications ; vessels ; furnitnre ; clothes; houses; leprosy ; baths ; and numerous other articles. All this forms the 3I1SIINA. The Gemara, that is, the complement or perfection, con- tains the Disputes and the Opinions of the Rabbins on the oral traditions. Their last decisions. It must be con- fessed that absurdities are sometimes elucidated by other absurdities ; but there are many admirable things in this vast repository. The Jews have such veneration for this compi- lation, that they compare the holy writings to water, and the Talmud to wine ; the text of Moses to pepper, but the Tal- mud to aromutics. Of the twelve hours of which the day is composed, they tell us that God employs nine to study the Talmud, and only three to read the written law ! St. Jerome appears evidently to allude to this work, and notices its " Old Wives' Tales," and the filthiness of some of its matters. The truth is, that the rabbins resembled the Jesuits and Casuists ; and Sanchez's work on " Matrimonio " is well known to agitate matters with such scrupulous nice- ties, as to become the most offensive thing possible. But as among the schoolmen and the casuists there have been great men, the same happened to these Gemaraists. Maimonides was a pillar of light among their darkness. The antiquity of this work is of itself sufficient to make it very curious. A specimen of the topics may be shown from the table and contents of " Mishnic Titles." In the order of seeds, we find the following heads, which present no uninteresting picture of the pastoral and pious ceremonies of the ancient Jews. The Mishna, entitled the Corner, i. e. of the field. The laws of gleaning are commanded according to Leviticus ; xix, 9, 10. Of the comer to be left in a corn-field. When tltc 180 THE TALMUD. corner is due and when not. Of the forgotten sheaf. Of the ears of corn left in gathering. Of grapes left upon the vine. Of olives left upon the trees. When and where the poor may lawfully glean. What sheaf, or olives, or grapes, may be looked upon to be forgotten, and what not. Who are the proper witnesses concerning the poor's due, to ex- empt it from tithing, &c. The distinguished uncircumci;'ied fruit : — it is unlawful to eat of the fruit of any tree till the fifth year of its growth : the first three years of its bearing, it is called uncircumcised ; the fourth is offered to God ; and the fifth may be eaten. The Mishna, entitled Heterogeneous Mixtures, contains several curious horticultural particulars. Of divisions be- tween garden-beds and fields, that the produce of the several sorts of grains or seeds may appear distinct. Of the distance between every species. Distances between vines planted in corn-fields from one another and from the corn ; between vines planted against hedges, walls, or espaliers, and any thing sowed near them.. Various cases relating to vineyards planted near any forbidden seeds. In their seventh, or sabbatical year, in which the produce of all estates was given up to the poor, one of these regula- tions is on the different work which must not be omitted in the sixth year, lest (because the seventh being devoted to the poor) the produce should be unfairly diminished, and the public benefit arising from this law be frustrated. Of what- ever is not perennial, and produced that year by the earth, no money may be made ; but what is perennial may be sold. On priests' tithes, we have a regulation concerning eating the fruits carried to the place where they are to be separated. The order icomen is very copious. A husband is obliged to forbid his wife to keep a particular man's company before two witnesses. Of the waters of jealousy by which a sus- pected woman is to be tried by drinking, we find ample par- ticulars. The ceremonies of clothing the accused woman at her trial. Pregnant women, or who suckle, are not obliged THE TALMUD. 181 to drink ; for the rabbins seem to be well convinced of the effects of the imagination. Of their divorces many are the laws ; and care is taken to particularize bills of divorces written by men in delirium or dangerously ill. One party of the rabbins will not allow of any divorce, unless something light was found in the woman's character, while another (the Pharisees) allow divorces even when a woman has only been 80 unfortunate as to suffer her husband's soup to be burnt ! In the order of daynages, containing rules how to tax the damages done by man or beast, or other casualties, their dis- tinctions are as nice as their cases are numerous. What beasts are innocent and what convict. By the one they mean creatures not naturally used to do mischief in any particular way ; and by the other, those that naturally, or by a vicious habit, are mischievous that vvay. The tooth of a beast is convict, when it is proved to eat its usual food, the property of another man, and full restitution must be made ; but if a beast that is used to eat fruits and herbs gnaws clothes or damages tools, which are not its usual food, the owner of the beast shall pay but half the damage when committed on the property of the injured person ; but if the injury is commit- ted on the property of the person who does the damage, he is free, because the beast gnawed what was not its usual food. As thus ; if the beast of A. gnaws or tears the clothes of B. in B.'s house or grounds, A.* shall pay half the dam- ages ; but if B.'s clothes are injured in A.'s grounds by A.'s beast, A. Is free, for what had B. to do to put his clothes in A.'s grounds? They made such subtile distinctions, as when an ox gores a man or beast, the law inquired into the habits of the beast ; whether it was an ox that used to gore, or an ox that was not used to gore. However acute these niceties sometimes were, they were often ridiculous. No beast could be convicted of being vicious till evidence was given that he had done mischief three successive days ; but if he leaves of! those vicious tricks ibr three days more, he is innocent again. An ox may be convict of goring an ox and not a man, or of 182 THE TALMUD. goring a man and not an ox : nay, of goring on the SabbatK and not on a working day. Their aim was to make the pun- ishment depend on the proofs of the design of the beast that did the injury ; but this attempt evidently led them to dis- tinctions much too subtile and obscure. Thus some rabbins say that the morning prayer of the Sheniah must be read at the time they can distinguish blue from white ; but another, more indulgent, insists it may be when we can distinguish blue from green ! which latter colours are so near akin as to require a stronger light. AYith the same remarkable acute- ness in distinguishing things, is their law respecting not touching fire on the Sabbath. Among those which are speci- fied in this constitution, the rabbins allow the minister to look over young children by lamp-light, but he shall not read him- self. The minister is forbidden to read by lamp-light, lest he should trim his lamp ; but he may direct the children w^here they should read, because that is quickly done, and there would be no danger of his trimming his lamp in their pres- ence, or suffering any of them to do it in his. All these regulations, which some may conceive as minute and frivo- lous, show a great intimacy with the human heart, and a spirit of profound observation which had been capable of achieving great purposes. The owner of an innocent beast only pays half the costs for the mischief incurred. Man is always convict, and for all mischief he does he must pay full costs. However there are casual damages, — as when a man pours water accident- ally on another man ; or makes a thorn-hedge which annoys his neighbour ; or falling down, and another by stumbling on him incurs harm : how such compensations are to be made. He that has a vessel of another's in keeping, and removes it, but in the removal breaks it, must swear to his own integrity ; i. e. that he had no design to break it. All offensive or noisy trades were to be carried on at a certain distance from a town. Where there is an estate, the sons inherit, and the daughters are maintained ; but if there is not enough for all. THE TALMUD. 18o the daughters are maintained, and the sons must get tlieu living as they can, or even beg. The contrary to this excel- lent ordination has been ob>erved in Europe. These lew titles may enable the reader to form a general notion of the several subjects on which the Mishna treats. The Gemara or Commentary is often overloaded with inepti tudes and ridiculous subtilt'es. For instance in the article of " Neo-ative Oaths." If a man swears he will eat no bread, and does eat all sorts of bread, in that case the perjury is but one ; but if he swears that he will eat nei her barley, nor wheaten, nor rye-bread ; the perjury is multiplied as he mul- tiplies his eating of the several sorts. — Again, the Pharisees and the Sadducees had strong differences about touching the holy writings with their hands. The doctors ordained that whoever touched the book of the law must not eat of the truma (first fruits of the wrought produce of the ground), till they had washed their hands. The reason they gave was this. In times of persecution, they used to hide those sacred books in secret places, and good men \vould lay them out of the way when they had done reading them. It was possible then that these rolls of the law might be gnawed by mice. The hands then that touched these books when they took them out of the places where they had laid them up, were supposed to be unclean, so far as to disable them from eating the truma till they were washed. On that account they made this a general rule, that if any part of the Bible (except Ecclesiastes, because that excellent book their sagacity ac- counted less holy than the rest) or their phylacteries, or the strings of their phylacteries, were touched by one who had a right to eat the truma, he might not eat it till he had washed his hands. An evidence of that superstitious trifling, for which the Pharisees and the later Rabbins have been so justly reprobated. They were absurdly minute in the literal observance of their vows, and as shamefully subtile in their artful evasion of them. The Pharisees could be easy enough to themselves 184 THE TALMUD. when convenient, and always as hard and unrelenting as possible to all others. They quibbled, and dissolved their vows, with experienced casuistry. Jesus reproaches the Pharisees in Matthew xv. and Mark vii. for flagrantly vio- lating the fifth commandment, by allowing the vow of a son, perhaps made in hasty anger, its full force, when he had sworn that his father should never be the better for him, or any thing he had, and by which an indigent father might be suffered to starve. There is an express cafe to this purpose in the Mishna, in the title of Vows. The reader may be amused by the story : — A man made a vow that his father should not profit by him. This man afterwards made a wed- ding-feast for his son, and wishes his father should be present ; but he cannot invite him, because he is tied up by his vow. He invented this expedient : — He makes a gift of the court in which the feast was to be kept, and of the feast itself, to a third person in trust, that his father should be invited by that third person, with the other company whom he at first de- signed. This third person then says, — If these things you thus have given me are mine, I will dedicate them to God, and then none of you can be the better for them. The son replied, — I did not give them to you that you should conse- crate them. Then the third man said, — Yours was no dona- tion, only you were willing to eat and drink w^ith your father. Thus, says R. Juda, they dissolved each other's intentions ; and when the case came before the rabbins, they decreed, that a gift which may not be consecrated by the person ic whom it is given is not a gift. The following extract from the Talmud exhibits a subtile mode of reasoning, w'hich the Jews adopted when the learned of Rome sought to persuade them to conform to their idolatry. It forms an entire Mishna, entitled Seder Nezikin, Avoda Zara, iv. 7, on idolatrous worship, translated by "Wotton. " Some Roman senators examined the Jews in this man- ner : — If God hath no delight in the worship of idols, why did he not destroy them ? The Jews made answer, — If men RABBINICAL STORIES. 185 had worshipped only things of which the world had had no need, he would have destroyed the object of their worship ; but they also worship the sun and moon, stars and planets ; and then he must have destroyed his world for the sake of these deluded men. But still, said the Romans, why does not God destroy the things which the world does not want, and leave those things which the world cannot be without? Because, replied the Jews, this would strengthen the hands of such as worship these necessary things, who would then say, — Ye allow now that these are gods, since they are not destroyed." RABBINICAL STORIES. The preceding article furnishes some of the more serious investigations to be found in the Talmud. Its levities may amuse. I leave untouched the gross obscenities and immoral decisions. The Talmud contains a vast collection of stories, apologues, and jests ; many display a vein of pleasantry, and at times have a wildness of invention which sufficiently mark the features of an eastern parent. Many extravagantly pue- rile were designed merely to recreate their young students. When a rabbin was asked the reason of so much nonsense, he replied that the ancients had a custom of introducing mu- sic in their lectures, which accompaniment made them more agreeable ; but that not having musical instruments in the schools, the rabbins invented these strange stories to arouse attention. This was ingeniously said ; but they make miser- able work when they pretend to give mystical interpretations to pure nonsense. In 1711, a German professor of the Oriental languages. Dr. Eisenmenger, published in two large volumes, quarto, his "Judaism Discovered," a ponderous labour, of which the scope was to ridicule the Jewish traditions. I shall give a dangerous adventure into which King David lye KABBINICAL STORIES. was drawn by the devil. The king one day hunting, Satan appeared before him in the Hkeness of a roe. David dis- charged an arrow at hira, but missed his aim. He pursued the feigned roe into the land of the Philistines. Ishbi, the brother of Goliath, instantly recognized the king as him who had slain that giant. He bound him, and bending him neck and heels, laid him under a wine-press in order to press him to death. A miracle saves David. The earth beneath him became soft, and Ishbi could not press wine out of him. That evening in the Jewish congregation a dove, whose wings were covered with silver, appeared in great perplexity ; and evidently signified the king of Israel was in trouble. Abis- hai, one of the king's counsellors, inquiring for the king, and finding him absent, is at a loss to proceed, for according to the Mishna, no one may ride on the king's horse, nor sit upon his throne, nor use his sceptre. The school of the rabbins, however, allowed these things in time of danger. On this Abishai vaults on David's horse, and (with an Oriental meta- phor) the land of the Philistines leaped to him instantly ! Arrived at Ishbi's house, he beholds his mother Orpa spin- ning. Perceiving the Israelite, she snatched up her spinning- wheel and threw it at him, to kill him ; but not hitting hira, she desired him to bring the spinning-wheel to her. He did not do this exactly, but returned it to her in such a way that she never asked any more for her spinning-wheel. When Ishbi saw this, and recollecting that David, though tied up neck and heels, was still under the wine-press, he cried out, " There are now two who will destroy me ! " So he threw David high up into the air, and stuck his spear into the ground, imagining that David would fell upon it and perish. But Abishai pronounced the magical name, which the Tal- mudists frequently make use of, and it caused David to hover between earth and heaven, so that lie fell not down ! Both at length unite against Ishbi, and observing that two young lions should kill one lion, find no difficulty in getting rid of the brother of Goliath ! RABBINICAL STORIES. 187 Of Solomon, another favourite hero of the Tahnudists, a fihe Arabian story is told. This king was an adept in necro- mancy, and a male and a female devil were always in waiting for an emergency. It is observable, that the Arabians, who have many stories concerning Solomon, always describe him as a magician. His adventures with Aschmedai, the prince of devils, are numerous ; and they both (the king and the devil) served one another many a slippery trick. One of the most remarkable is when Aschmedai, who was prisoner to Solomon, the king having contrived to possess himself of the devil's seal-ring, and chained him, one day offered to answer an unholy question put to him by Solomon, provided he re- turned him his seal-ring and loosened his chain. The imper- tinent curiosity of Solomon induced him to commit this folly. Instantly Aschmedai swallowed the monarch ; and stretching out his wings up to the firmament of heaven, one of his feet remaining on the earth, he spit out Solomon four hundred leagues from him. This was done so privately, that no one knew anything of the matter. Aschmedai then assumed the likeness of Solomon, and sat on his throne. From that hour did Solomon say, " This then is the reward of all my labour," according to Ecclesiasticus, i. 3 ; which this means, one rab- bin says, his walking-staff; and another insists was his ragged coat. For Solomon went a begging from door to door ; and wherever he came he uttered these words : " I, the preacher, was king over Isi-ael in Jerusalem." At length coming be- fore the council, and still repeating these remarkable words, without addition or variation, the rabbins said, " This means something : for a fool is not constant in his tale ! " They asked the chamberlain, if the king frequently saw him ? and he replied to them, No ! Then they sent to the queens, to ask if the king came into their apartments? and they an- swered. Yes ! The rabbins then sent them a message to take notice of his feet; for the feet of devils are likei the feet of cocks. The queens acquainted them that his majesty always came in slippers, but forced them to embrace at times for- 188 RABBINICAL STORIES. bidden by the law. He had attempted to He with his mother Bathsheba, whom he had ahnost torn to piece?. At this the rabbins assembled in great haste, and taking the beggar with them, they gave him the ring and the chain in which the great magical name was engraven, and led him to the palace. Aschmedai was sitting on the throne as the real Solomon entered ; but instantly he shrieked and flew away. Yet to his last day was Solomon afraid of the prince of devils, and had his bed guarded by the valiant men of Israel, as is written in Cant. iii. 7, 8. They frequently display much humour in their inventions, as in the following account of the manners and morals of an infamous town, which mocked at all justice. There were in Sodom four judges, who were liars, and deriders of justice. When any one had struck his neighbour's wife, and caused her to miscarry, these judges thus counselled the husband : — " Give her to the offender, that he may get her with child for thee." When any one had cut off an ear of his neighbour's ass, they said to the owner, — " Let him have the ass till the ear is grown again, that it may be returned to thee as thou wishest." When any one had wounded his neighbour, they told the wounded man to " give him a fee for letting him blood." A toll was exacted in passing a certain bridge ; but if any one chose to wade through the water, or walk round about to save it, he was condemned to a double toll. Eleasar, Abraham's servant, came thither, and they wounded him. When, before the judge, he was ordered to pay his fee for having his blood let, Eleasar flung a stone at the judge, and wounded him; on which the judge said to him, — "What meaneth this ? " Eleasar replied, — " Give him who wounded me the fee that is due to myself for wounding thee." The people of this town had a bedstead on which they laid travel- lers who asked to rest. If any one was too long for it, they cut off his legs ; and if he was shorter than the bedstead, they strained him to its head and foot. When a beggar came to this town, every one gave him a penny, on which was in- RABBINICAL STORIES. 189 scribed the donor's name ; but they would sell him no bread, nor let him escape. When the beggar died from hunger, then they came about him, and each man took back his penny. These stories are curious inventions of keen mockery and malice, seasoned with humour. It is said some of the famous decisions of Sancho Panza are to be found in the Talmud. Abraham is said to have been jealous of his wives, and built an enchanted city for them. He built an iron city and put them in. The walls were so high and dark, the sun could not be seen in it. He gave * them a bowl full of pearls and jewels, which sent forth a light in this dark city equal to the sun. Noah, it seems, when in the ark, had no other light than jewels and pearls. Abraham, in travelling to Egypt, brought with him a chest. At the custom-house the officers exacted the duties. Abraham would have readily paid, but desired they would not open the chest. They first insisted on the duty for clothes, which Abraham consented to pay ; but then they thought, by his ready acquiescence, that it might be gold. Abraham consents to pay for gold. They now sus- pected it might be silk. Abraham was willing to pay for silk, or more costly pearls ; and Abraham generously consented to pay as if the chest contained the most valuable of things. It was then they resolved to open and examine the chest ; and, behold, as soon as that chest was opened, that great lustre of human beauty broke out which made such a noise in the land of Egypt ; it was Sarah herself! The jealous Abra- ham, to conceal her beauty, had locked her up in this chest. The whole creation in these rabbinical fancies is strangely gigantic and vast. The works of eastern nations are full of these descriptions ; and Hesiod's Theogony, and Milton's battles of angels, are puny in comparison with these rabbin- ical heroes, or rabbinical things. Mountains are hurled, with all their woods, with great ease, and creatures start into ex- istence too terrible for our conceptions. The winged monster in tlie " Arabian Nights," called the Roc, is evidently one of 190 RABBINICAL STORIES. the creatures of rabbinical fancy ; it would sometimes, when very hungry, seize and fly away with an elephant. Captain Cook found a bird's nest in an island near New Holland, built with sticks on the ground, six-and-twenty feet in circum- ference, and near three feet in height. But of the rabbinical birds, fish, and animals, it is not probable any circumnavi- gator will ever trace even the slightest vestige or resem- blance. One of their birds, when it spreads its wings, blots out the sun. An egg from another fell out of its nest, and the white thereof broke and glued about three hundred cedar-trees, and overflowed a village. One of them stands up to the lower joint of the leg in a river, and some mariners, imagining the water was not deep, were hastening to bathe, when a voice from heaven said, — " Step not in there, for seven years ago there a carpenter dropped his axe, and it hath not yet reached the bottom." The following passage, concerning fat geese, is perfectly in the style of these rabbins : " A rabbin once saw in a desert a flock of geese so fat that their feathers fell off, and the rivers flowed in fat. Then said I to them, shall we have part of you in the other world when the Messiah shall come ? And one of them lifted up a wing, and another a leg, to signify these parts we should have. We should otherwise have had all parts of these geese ; but we Israelites shall be called to an account touching these fat geese, because their sufferings are owing to us. It is our iniquities that have de- layed the coming of the Messiah ; and these geese suflTer greatly by reason of their excessive fat, which daily and daily increases, and will increase till the Messiah comes ! " What the manna was which fell in the -wilderness, has often been disputed, and still is disputable ; it was sufficient for the rabbins to have found in the Bible that the taste of it -was " as a wafer made with honey," to have raised their fancy to its pitch. They declare it was " like oil to children honey to old men, and cakes to middle age." It had every RABBINICAL STORIES. lyi kind of taste except that of cucumbers, m^ilons, garlic, and onions, and leeks, for these were those Egyptian roots which the Israelites so much regretted to have lost. This manna had, however, the quality to accommodate itself to the palate of those who did not murmur in the wilderness ; and to these it became fish, flesh, or fowl. The rabbins never advance an absurdity without quoting a text in Scripture ; and to substantiate this fact they quote Deut. ii. 7, where it is said, " Through this great wilderness these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee, and thou hast lacked nothing ! " St. Austin repeats this explana- tion of the rabbins, that the faithful found in this manna the taste of their favourite food ! However, the Israelites could not have found all these benefits, as the rabbins tell us ; for in Numbers xi. G, they exclaim, " There is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes ! " They had just said that they remembered the melons, cucumbers, &c., which they had eaten of so freely in Egypt. One of the h\-per- boles of the rabbins is, that the manna fell in such mountains, that the kings of the east and the west beheld them ; which they found on a passage in the 23d Psalm ; " Thou pre- parest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ! " These may serve as specimens of the forced interpretations on which their grotesque fables are founded. Their detestation of Titus, their great conqueror, appears by the following wild invention. After having narrated cer- tain things too shameful to read, of a prince whom Josephus describes in far different colours, they tell us that on sea Titus tauntingly observed, in a great storm, that the God of the Jews was only powerful on the water, and that, there fore, he had succeeded in drowning Pharaoh and Sisera. " Had he been strong, he would have waged war with me in Jerusalem." On uttering this blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, " Wicked man ! I have a little creature in the world which sliall wage war with thee ! " When Titus landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years 192 ON THE CUSTOM OF together made holes in his brains. When liis skull was opened, the gnat was found to be as large as a pigeon : the mouth of the gnat was of copper, and the claws of iron. A collection which has recently appeared of these Talmudical stories has not been executed with any felicity of selection. That there are, however, some beautiful inventions in the Talmud, I refer to the story of Solomon and Sheba, in the present volume. ON THE CUSTOM OF SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING. It is probable that this custom, so universally prevalent, originated in some ancient superstition ;• it seems to have ex- cited inquiry among all nations. " Some Catholics," says Father Feyjoo, " have attributed the origin of this custom to the ordinance of a pope. Saint Gregory, who is said to have instituted a short benediction to be used on such occasions, at a time when, during a pesti- lence, the crisis was attended by sneezing, and in most cases followed by death." But the rabbins, who have a story for every thing, say, that, before Jacob, men never sneezed but once, and then im- mediately died: they assure us that that patriarch was the first who died by natural disease ; before him all men died by sneezing ; the memory of which was ordered to be pre- served in all nations, by a command of every prince to his sub- jects to employ some salutary exclamation after the act of sneezing. But these are Talmudical dreams, and only serve to prove that so familiar a custom has always excited inquiry. Even Aristotle has delivered some considerable nonsense on this custom ; he says it is an honourable acknowledgment of the seat of good sense and genius — the head — to distinguish it from two other offensive eruptions of air, which are never accompanied by any benediction from the by-standers. The SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING. 193 custom, at all events, existed long prior to Pope Gregory. Tlie lover in Apuleius, Gyton in Petronius, and allusions to it in Pliny, prove its antiquity ; and a memoir of the French Academy notices the practice in the New World, on the first discovery of America. Everywhere man is saluted for sneezing. An amusing account of the ceremonies which attend the sneezing of. a king of Monomotapa, shows what a national concern may be the sneeze of despotism. — Those who are near his person, when tliis happens, salute him in so loud a tone, that persons in the ante-chamber hear it, and join in the acclamation ; in the adjoining apartments they do the same, till the noise reaches the street, and becomes propa- gated throughout the city ; so that, at each sneeze of his majesty, results a most horrid cry from the salutations of many thousands of his vassals. When the king of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers imme- diately turn then* backs on him, and give a loud slap on their nght thigh. With the ancients sneezing was ominous ; from the right it was considered auspicious ; and Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, says, that before a naval battle it was a sign of conquest ! Catullus, in his pleasing poem of Acme and Septimus, makes this action from the deity of Love, from the left, the source of his fiction. The passage has been elegantly versified by a poetical friend, who finds authority that the gods sneezing on the right in heaven, is supposed to come to us on earth on the left. Cupid sneezinr/ in his fli^lit, Once was heard upon the right, BodinjT woe to lovers true ; But now upon the left he flew, And with sporting sneeze divine, Gave to joy the sacred sign. Acm6 bent lier lovely face, Flush'd with rapture's rosy grace, Aad those eyes that swam in bliss, Prest with many a breathing kiss; voi>. I 13 194 BONAVENTURE DE PERIERS. Breathing, murmuring, soft, and low, Thus might life for ever flow! " Love of my life, and life of love! Cupid rules our fates above, Ever let us vow to join In homage at his happy shruio." Cui)id heard the lovers true, Again upon tlie kj'l he flew, And with sporting sneeze, divine, Renew'd of joy the sacred sifjii 1 BONAVENTURE DE PERIERS. A iiAiM'^ art in the relation of a story is, doubtless, a very agreeable talent ; it has obtained La Fontaine all the applause which his charming naivete deserves. or " Bonaventure de Periers, Valet de Chamhre de la Royne de Navarre," there are three little volumes of tales in prose, in the quaint or the coarse pleasantry of that day. The following is not given as the best, but as it introduces a novel etymology of a word in great use : — " A student at law, who studied at Poitiers, had tolerably improved himself in cases of equity ; not that he was over- burthened with learning ; but his chief deficiency was a want of assurance and confidence to display his knowledge. His father, passing by Poitiers, recommended him to read aloud, and to render his memory more prompt by continued exer- cise. To obey the injunctions of his father, he determined to read at the Ministery. In order to obtain a certain quantity of assurance, he went every day into a garden, which was a very retired spot, being at a distance from any house, and where there grew a great number of fine large cabbages. Thus for a long time he pursued his studies, and repeated his lectures to these cabbajjes, addressin"; them bv the title of gentlemer, and balancing his periods to them as if they had composed an audience of scholars. After a fortnight or three weeks* preparation, he thought it was high time to take the GROTIUS. 195 chair ; imagining that he should be able to lecture his Bcholars as well as he had before done his cabbages. He comes forward, he begins his oration — but before a dozen words his tongue freezes between his teeth ! Confused, and hardly knowing where he was, all he could bring out was — Domini, Ego bene video quod non estis canles ; that is to say — for there are some who will have every thing in plain English — Gentlemen, I now clearly see you are not cabbages/ In the garden he could conceive the cabbages to be scholars ; but in the chair, he could not conceive the scholars to be cabbages." On this story La Monnoye has a note, which gives a new origin to a familiar terra. " The hall of the School of Equity at Poitiers, where the institutes were read, was called La Mlnisterie. On which head Florimond de Remond (book vii. ch. 11), speaking of Albert Babinot, one of the first disciples of Calvin, after having said he was called ' The good man,' adds, that be- cause he had been a student of the institutes at this 3Iinis- terie of Poitiers, Calvin and others styled him Mr. Minister ; from whence, afterwards, Calvin took occasion to give the name of Ministers to the pastors of his church." GROTIUS. The Life of Grotius shows the singular felicity of a man of letters and a statesman ; and how a student can pass his hours in the closest imprisonment. The gate of the prison has sometimes been the porch of fame. Grotius, studious from his infancy, had also received from Nature the faculty of genius, and was so fortunate as to find in liis father a tutor who had formed his early taste and his moral feelings. The younger Grotius, in imitation of Horace, has celebrated his gratitude in verse. 19G GROTIUS. One of the most interesting circumstances in the Hfe of this great man, which strongly marks his genius and fortitude, is displayed in the manner in which he employed his time during his imprisonment. Other men, condemned to exile and captivity, if they survive, despair; the man of letters may reckon those days as the sweetest of his hfe. When a prisoner at the Hague, he laboured on a Latin essay on the means of terminating religious disputes, which occasion so many infelicities in the state, in the church, and in families ; when he was carried to Louvenstein, he resumed his law studies, which other employments had interrupted. He gave a portion of his time to moral philosophy, which engaged him to translate the maxims of the ancient poets, collected by Stobaeus, and the fragments of Menander and Philemon. Every Sunday was devoted to the Scriptures, and to his Commentaries on the New Testament. In the course of the work he fell ill ; but as soon as he recovered his health, he composed his treatise, in Dutch verse, on the Truth of the Christian Rehgion. Sacred and profane authors occupied him alternately. His only mode of refreshing his mind was to pass from one work to another. He sent to Vossius his observations on the Tragedies of Seneca. He wrote several other works ; particularly a little Catechism, in verse, for his daughter Cornelia ; and collected materials to form his Apology. Add to these various labours an extensive cor- respondence he held with the learned ; and his letters were often so many treatises ; there is a printed collection amount- ing to two thousand. Grotius had notes ready for eveiy classical author of antiquity, whenever they prepared a new edition ; an account of his plans and his performances might furnish a volume of themselves ; yet he never published in haste, and was fond of revising them. "VVe must recollect, notwithstanding such uninterrupted literary avocations, his hours were frequently devoted to the public functions of an ambassador : " I only reserve for my studies the time wliich NOBLEMEN TURNED CRITICS. 197 Other ministers give to their pleasures, to conversations often useless, and to visits sometimes unnecessary ; " such is the language of this great man ! Although he produced thus abundantly, his continement was not more than two years. We may Avell exclaim here, that the mind of Grotius had never been imprisoned. I have seen this great student censured for neglecting his official duties ; but, to decide on this accusation, it would be necessary to know the character of his accuser. NOBLEMEN TURNED CRITICS. I OFFER to the contemplation of those unfortunate mortals who are necessitated to undergo the criticisms of lords, this pair of anecdotes : — Soderini, the Gonfaloniere of Florence, having had a statue made by the great Michael Angela, when it was fini^5hed, came to inspect it ; and having for some time saga- ciously considered it, poring now on the face, then on the arms, the knees, the form of the leg, and at length on the foot itself; the statue being of such perfect beauty, he found himself at a loss to display his powers of criticism, only by lavishing his praise. But only to praise might appear as if there had been an ohtuseness in the keenness of his criticism. He trembled to find a fault, but a fault must be found. At length he ventured to mutter something concerning the nose ; it might, he thought, be something more Grecian. Angela differed from his grace, but he said he would attempt to gratify his taste. He took up his chisel, and concealed some marble dust in his hand ; feigning to re-touch the part, he adroitly let fall some of the dust he held concealed. The cardinal observing it as it fell, transported at the idea of his critical acumen, exclaimed — "Ah, Angela ! you have now given an inimitable grace ! " 198 LITERARY IMPOSTURES. When Pope was first introduced to read liis Iliad to Lord Halifax, the noble critic did not venture to be dissatisfied with so perfect a composition ; but, like the cardinal, this passage, and that word, this turn, and that expression, formed the broken cant of his criticisms. The honest poet was &tung with vexation ; for, in general, the parts at which his loi'd- ship hesitated were those with which he was most satisfied. As he returned home with Sir Samuel Garth, he revealed to him the anxiety of his mind. " Oh," replied Garth laughing, "you are not so well acquainted with his lordship as myself; he must criticize. At your next visit, read to him those very passages as they now stand ; tell him that you have recol- lected his criticisms ; and I'll warrant you of his approbation of them. This is what I have done a hundred times myself. Pope made use of this stratagem ; it took, like the marble dust of Angela ; and my lord, like the cardinal, exclaimed — " Dear Pope, they are now inimitable." LITERARY IMPOSTURES. Some authors have practised singular impositions on the public. Varillas, the F'rench historian, enjoyed for some time a great reputation in his own country for his historical compositions, but when they became more known, the schol ars of other countries destroyed the reputation which he had unjustly acquired. His continual pi'ofessions of sincerity prejudiced many in his favour, and made him pass for a writer who had i)enetrated into the inmost recesses of tfie cabinet: but the public were at length undeceived, and were convinced that the historical anecdotes which Varillas put off for authentic facts had no foundation, being wholly his own inventions : — though he endeavoured to make them pass for realities by affected citations of titles, instructions, letters, memoirs, and relations, all of them imaginary ! He had LITERARY IMPOSTURES. 1ing as he was successful in his enterprises, having sent Dominic with some missionaries into Languedoc, these men so irritated the here- tics they were sent to convert, that most of them were assas- sinated at Toulouse in the year 1200. He called in the aid of temporal arms, and published against them a crusade, granting, as was usual Avith the popes on similar occasions, all kinds of indulgences and pardons to those who should arm against these Mahometans, so he styled these unfortunate Languedocians. Once all were Turks when they were not Romanists. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, was constrained to submit. The inhabitants were passed on the edge of the sword, without distinction of age or sex. It was then he established that scourge of Europe, The Inquisition. This pope considered that, though men might be compelled to submit by arms, numbers might remain professing partic- ular dogmas ; and he established this sanguinary tribunal solely to inspect into all families, and inquire concerning all persons who they imagined were unfriendly to the inter- ests of Rome. Dominic did so much by his persecuting in- quiries, that he firmly established the Inquisition at Toulouse. Not before the year 1484 it became known in Spain. To another Dominican, John de Torquemada, the court of Rome owed this obligation. As he was the confessor of Queen Isa- bella, he had extorted from her a promise that if ever she ascended the throne, she would use every means to extirpate heresy and heretics. Ferdinand had conquered Granada, INQUISITION. 239 and had expelled from the Spanish realms multitudes of un- fortunate Moors. A few remained, whom, with the Jews, he compelled to become Christians : they at least assumed the name ; but it was well known that both these nations natur- ally respected their own faith, rather than that of the Chris- tians. This race was afterwai-ds distinguished as Christianoi Novos ; and in forming marriages, the blood of the Hidalgo was considered to lose its purity by mingling with such a sus- picious source. Torquemada pretended that this dissimulation would greatly hurt the interests of the holy religion. The queen listened with respectful diffidence to her confessor ; and at length gained over the king to consent to the establishment of this unrelenting tribunal. Torquemada, indefatigable in his zeal for the holy chair, in the space of fourteen years that he exercised the office of chief inquisitor, is said to have prose- cuted near eighty thousand persons, of whom six thousand were condemned to the flames. Voltaire attributes the taciturnity of the Spaniards to the universal horror such proceedings spread. "A general jeal- ousy and suspicion took possession of all ranks of people : friendship and sociability were at an end! Brothei's were afraid of brothers, fathers of their children." The situation and the feelings of one imprisoned in the cells of the Inquisition are forcibly painted by Orobio, a mild, and meek, and learned man, whose controversy with Lim- borch is well known. When he escaped from Spain he took refuge in Holland, was circumcised, and died a {)hilosophical Jew. He has left this admirable description of himself in the cell of the Inquisition. " Inclosed in this dungeon I could not even find space enough to turn myself about ; I suffiired so much tliat I felt my brain disordered. I fre- quently asked myself, am I really Don Balthazar Orobio, who used to walk about Seville at my pleasure, who so greatly enjoyed myself with ray wife and children ? I often imagined that all my life had only been a dream, and 240 INQUISITION. that I really had been born in this dungeon ! The only amusement I could invent was metaphysical disputations. I was at once opponent, respondent, and praeses ! " In the cathedral at Saragossa is the tomb of a famous in- quisitor ; six pillars surround tliis tomb ; to each is chained a Moor, as preparatory to his being burnt. On this St. Foix ingeniously observes, " If ever the Jack Ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as an excellent model." The Inquisition punished heretics by fre^ to elude the maxim, " Ecclesia non nuvlt sangidnem ; " for burning a man, say they, does not shed his blood. Otho, the bishop at the Norman invasion, in the tapestry worked by Matilda the queen of William the Conqueror, is represented with a muce in his hand, for the purpose tliat when he despatched his an- tagonist he might not spill blood, but only break his bones ! Religion has had her quibbles as well as law. The establishment of this despotic order was resisted in France ; but it may perhaps surprise the reader that a recor- der of London, in a speech, urged the necessity of setting up an Inquisition in England ! It was on the trial of Penn the Quaker, in 1670, who was acquitted by the jury, which highly provoked the said recorder. " Magna Charta" writes the prefacer to the trial, " with the recorder of London, is noth- ing more than 3fagna F / " It appears that the jury, after being kept two days and two nights to alter their ver- dict, wei'e in the end both fined and imprisoned. Sir John Howell, the recorder, said, " Till now I never understood the reason of the policy and |)rudence of the Spaniards in suffer- ing the Inquisition among them ; and certainly it will not be well with us, till something like unto the Spanish Inquisition be in England." Thus it will ever be, while both parties struggling for the preeminence rush to the sharp extremity of things, and annihilate the trembling balance of the constitu- tion. But the adopted motto of Lord Erskine must ever be that of every Briton, " Trial by Jury." INQUISITION. 241 So late as the year 1761, Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of seventy, was burnt by these evangelical executioners. His trial was printed at Amsterdam, 1762, from the Lisbon copy. And for what was this unhappy Jesuit condemned ? Not, as some have imagined, for his having been concerned in a con- spiracy against the king of Portugal. No other charge is laid to him in this trial but that of having indulged certain heretical notions, which any other tribunal but that of the Inquisition would liave looked upon as the delirious fancies of a fanatical old man. Will posterity believe, that in the eighteenth century an aged visionary was led to the stake for having said, amongst other extravagances, that " The holy Virgin having commanded him to write the life of Anti- Christ, told him that he, Malagrida, was a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist ; that there were to be three Anti-Christs, and that the last sliould be born at Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920 ; and that he would marry Proserpine, one of the infernal furies." For such ravings as these the unhappy old man was burnt in recent times. Granger assures us, that in his remem- brance a horse that had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c. by significant tokens, was, to- gether with his oioner, put into the Inquisition for both of them dealing with the devil ! A man of letters declared that, having fallen into their hands, nothing perplexed him so much as the ignorance of the inquisitor and his council : and it seem(id very doubtful whether they had read even the scrip- tures. Ono of the most interesting anecdotes relating to the ter- rible Inquisition, exemplifying how the use of the diabolical engines of torture forces men to confess crimes they have not been guilty of, was related to me by a Portuguese gentleman. A nobleman in Lisbon having heard that his physician and friend was imprisoned by the Inquisition, under the stale pre- text of Judaism, addressed a letter to one of them to request his freedom, assuring the inquisitor that his friend was as vol.. I. 16 242 INQUISITION. orthodox a Christian as himself. The physician, notwith- standing this high recommendation, was put to the torture ; and, as was usually the case, at the height of his sufferings confessed everything they wished ! This enraged the noble- man, and feigning a dangerous illness he begged the inquisitor would come to give him his last spiritual aid. As soon as the Dominican arrived, the lord, who had pre- pared his confidential servants, commanded the inquisitor in their presence to acknowledge himself a Jew, to write his confession, and to sign it. On the refusal of the inquisitor, the nobleman ordered his people to put on the inquisitor's head a red-hot helmet, which to his astonishment, in drawing aside a screen, he beheld glowing in a small furnace. At the sight of this new instrument of torture, " Luke's iron crown," the monk wrote and subscribed ihe abhorred confession. The nobleman then observed, " See now the enormity of your manner of proceeding with unhappy men ! My poor physi- cian, like you, has confessed Judaism ; but with this differ- ence, only torments have forced that from him which fear alone has drawn from you ! " The Inquisition has not failed of receiving its due praises. Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, has discovered the " Origin of the Inquisition " in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege that God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of Babel ! Macedo, however, is not so dreaming a personage as he appears ; for he obtained a Professor's chair at Padua for the arguments he delivered at Venice against the pope, which were pub- lished by the title of " The literary Roarings of the Lion at St. Mark ;" besides, he is the author of 109 different works; but it is curious to observe how far our interest is apt to pre- vail over our conscience, — Macedo praised the Inquisition up to the skies, while he sank the pope to nothing ! Among the great revolutions of this age, and since the last edition of this work, the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal is aboUshed — but its history enters into that of the human mind ; SINGULARITIES IN REPASTS. 243 and the Iiistory of the Inquisition by Limborch, translated by Chandler, with a very curious " Introduction," loses none of its value witli the philosophical mind. This monstrous tri- bunal of human opinions aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect. In these changeful times, the history of the Inquisition is not the least mutable. The Inquisition, which was aboUshed, was again restored — and at the present moment, 1 know not whether it is to be restored or aboUshed. SINGULARITIES OBSERVED BY VARIOUS NATIONS IN THEIR REPASTS. The Maldivian islanders eat alone. They retire into the most hidden parts of their houses ; and they di-aw down the cloths that serve as bUnds to their windows, that they may eat unobserved. This custom probably arises from the savage, in early periods of society, concealing himself to eat : he fears that another, with as sharp an appetite, but more strong than himself, should come and ravish his meal from him. The ideas of witchcraft are also widely spread among barbarians ; and they are not a little fearful that some incantation may be thrown among their victuals. In noticing the solitary meal of the INIaldivian islander, another reason may be alleged for this misanthropical repast. They never will eat with any one who is infciior to them in birth, in riches, or dignity ; and as it is a difficult matter to settle this equality, they are condemned to lead this unsocial life. On the contrary, the islanders of the Philippines are re- markably social. Whenever one of them finds himself with- out a companion to partake of his meal, he runs till he meets with one ; and we are assured that, however keen his appetite may be, he ventures not to satisfy it without a guest. 244 SINGULARITIES OF NATIONS Savages, says Montaigne, when they eat, " S^essityent les doigts mix cuisses, a la bourse des genitoires, et a la plante des pieds." We cannot forbear exulting in the poUshed con- venience of napkins ! The tables of the rich Chinese shine with a beautiful var- nish, and are covered with silk carpets very elegantly worked. They do not make use of plates, knives, and forks : every guest has two little ivory or ebony sticks, which he handles very adroitly. The Otaheiteans, who are naturally social, and very gentle in their manners, feed separately from each other. At the hour of repast, the members of each family divide ; two brothers, two sisters, and even husband and wife, father and mother, have each their respective basket. They place themselves at the distance of two or three yards from each other ; they turn their backs, and take their meal in profound silence. The custom of drinking at different hours from those assigned for eating, exists among many savage nations. Originally begun from necessity, it became a habit, which subsisted even when the fountain was near to them. A people transplanted, observes an ingenious philosopher, pre- serve in another cUmate modes of hving which relate to those from whence they originally came. It is thus the Indians of Brazil scrupulously abstain from eating when (hey drink, and from drinking when they eat.* IVlien neither decency nor politeness is kno^vTi, the man who invites his friends to a repast is greatly embarrassed to testify his esteem for his guests, and to offer them some amusement ; for the savage guest imposes on himself this obligation. Amongst the greater part of the American Indians, the host is continually on the watch .to solicit them to eat, but touches nothing himself. In New France, he wearies liimself with singing, to divert the company while they eat. * Esprit des L'sages, et des Coutumes. IN THEIR REPASTS. 245 When civilization advances, men wish to show their confi- dence to their friends : tliey treat their guests as rehitions ; and it is said that in China the master of a liouse, to give a mark of his i)()Hteness, absents himself while his guests regale themselves at his table with undisturbed revelry. The demonstrations of friendship in a rude state have a savage and gross character, which it is not a little curious to observe. The Tartars pull a man by the ear to press him to drink, and they continue tonnenting him till he opens liia mouth, then they clap their hands and dance before him. No customs seem more ridiculous than those practised by a Kamschatkan, when he wishes to make another his friend. He first invites him to eat. The host and his guest strip themselves in a cabin which is heated to an uncommon de- gree. While the guest devours the food with which they serve him, the other continuallv stirs the fire. The stranger must bear the excess of the heat as well as of the repast. He vomits ten times before he will yield ; but, at length obliged to acknowledge himself overcome, he begins to compound matters. He purchases a moment's respite by a present of clothes or dogs ; for his host thi-eatens to heat the cabin, and oblige him to eat till he dies. The stranger has the ri2;ht of retaliation allowed to him : he treats in the same manner, and exacts the same presents. Should his host not accept the invitation of liim whom he had so hand- somely regaled, in that case the guest would take possession of his cabin, till he had the presents returned to him which the other had in so singular a manner obtained. For this extravagant custom a curious reason has been alleged. It is meant to put the person to a trial, whose friendship is sought. The Kamschadale, who is at the ex- pense of the- fires, and the repast, is desirous to know if the stranger has the strength to su]>port ])ain with him, and if he is generous enough to share with him some part of his prop- erty. While the guest is employed on his meal, he continuea heating the cabin to an insupportable degree ; and for a last 246 MONARCnS. proof of the stranger's constancy and attachment, he exacts more clothes and more dogs. The host passes through tlie same ceremonies in the cabin of the stranger ; and he shows, in his turn, with what degree of fortitude he can defend his friend. The most singular customs would appear simple, if it were possible for the philosopher to understand them on the spot. As a distinguishing mark of their esteem, the negroes of Ardra drink out of one cup at the same time. The king of Loango eats in one house, and drinks in another. A Kam- echatkan kneels before his guests ; he cuts an enormous slice from a sea-calf; he crams it entire into the mouth of his friend, furiously crying out " Tana ! " — There ! and culting away what hangs about his lips, snatches and swallows it with avidity. A barbarous magnificence attended the feasts of the an- cient monarchs of France. After their coronation or conse- cration, when they sat at table, the nobility served them on horseback. MONARCHS. Saint Ciirysostom has this very acute observation on kings : many monarchs are infected with a strange wish that their successors may turn out bad princes. Good kings desire it, as they imagine, continues this pious politician, that their glory will appear the more splendid by the contrast ; and the bad desire it, as they consider such kings will serve to countenance their o%vn misdemeanors. Princes, says Gracian, are willing to be aided, but not surpassed: which maxim is thus illustrated. A Spanish lord having frequently played at chess with Philip II., and won all the games, perceived, when his majesty rose from play, that he was much ruffled with chagriD. The lord, when he returned home, said to his MONAECHS. 217 family, — "My children, we have nothing more to do at court: there we must expect no favour; for the king is offended at my having won of him every game of chess." — As chess entirely depends on the genius of the players, and not on fortune, King Philip the chess-player conceived he ought to suffer no rival. Tliis appears still clearer by the anecdote told of the Earl of Sunderland, minister to George I., who was partial to the game of chess. He once played with the Laird of Cluny, and the learned Cunningham, the editor of Horace. Cun- ningham, with too much skill and too much sincerity, beat his lordship. "The earl was so fretted at his superiority and surUness, that he dismissed him without any reward. Cluny allowed himself sometimes to be beaten ; and by that means got his pardon, with something handsome besides." In the Criticon of Gracian, there is a singular anecdote relative to kings. A Pohsh monarch having quitted his companions when he was hunting, his courtiers found him, a few days after, in a market-place, disguised as a porter, and lending out the use of his shoulders for a few pence. At this they were as much surprised as they were doubtful at first whether the porter could be his majesty. At length they ventured to express their complaints that so great a personage should debase himself by so vile an employment. His majesty having heard them, rephed, " Upon my honour, gentlemen, the load wliich I quitted is by far heavier than the one you see me carry here : the weightiest is but a straw, when compared to tfiat world under which I laboured. I have slept more in foul nights than I have during all my reign. I begin to live, and to be king of myself. Elect whom you choose. For me, who am so well, it were madness to return to court" Another Polish king, who succeeded this philosoi)hic mo- narchical porter, Avhen they placed the sceptre in his hand, exclaimed, — " I had rather tug at an oar ! " The vacillating fortunes of the Polish monarchy present several of these 248 MONARCHS. anecdotes ; their inonarchs appear to have frequently been philosophers ; and, as the world is made, an excellent philos- opher proves but an indifferent king. Two observations on kings were offered to a courtier with great naivete by that experienced politician the Duke of Alva. — " Kmgs who affect to be familiar with their com- panions make use of men as they do of oranges ; they take oranges to extract their juice ; and when they are well sucked they thi'ow them away. Take care the king does not do the same to you ; be cax*eful that he does not read all your thoughts ; otherwise he will throw you aside to the back of his chest, as a book of which he has read enough." " The squeezed orange," the king of Prussia applied in liis dispute with Voltaire. When it was suggested to Dr. Johnson that kings must be unhappy because they are deprived of the gi'eatest of all satisfactions, easy and unreserved society, he observed that this was an ill-founded notion. " Beinj]; a kins: does not ex- elude a man from such society. Great kings have always been social. The king of Prussia, the only great king at present (this was the great Frederic) is very social. Charles the Second, the last king of En,, to begin another, the misery of which will never end!" Yet history records nothing bad of this prince. Joi-tin observes that he added this reflection in his later edi- tion, so that the good man as he grew older grew more un- charitable in his religious notions. It is in tliis manner too that the Benedictine editor of Justin Martyr speaks of the illustrious pagans. This father, after highly applauding Soc 284 THE ABSENT MAN. rates, and a few more who resembled him, inclines to think that they are not fixed in Hell. But the Benedictine editor takes great pains to clear the good father from the sliameful imputation of supposing that a virtuous pagan might be saved as well as a Benedictine monk ! For a curious specimen of this odium theologicuin, see the " Censure " of the SorbonuQ on Marmontel's Belisarius. The adverse party, who were either philosophers or re- formers, received all such information with great suspicion. Anthony Cornelius, a lawyer in the sixteenth century, wrote a small tract, which was so effectually suppressed, as a mon- ster of atheism, that a copy is now only to be found in the hands of the curious. This author ridiculed the absurd and horrid doctrine of infant damnation, and was instantly de- cried as an atheist, and the printer prosecuted to his ruin ! Cajlius Sccundus Curio, a noble Italian, published a treatise De Amplitudine beati Regni Dei, to prove that Heaven has more inhabitants than Hell, or in his own phrase that the elect are more numerous than the reprobate. However we may incline to smile at these works, their design was benevo- lent. They were the first streaks of the morning light of the Reformation. Even such works assisted mankind to ex- amine more closely, and hold in greater contempt, the extravagant and pernicious doctrines of the domineermg papistical church. THE ABSENT MAN. The character of Bruyere's " Absent Man " has been translated in the Spectator, and exhibited on the theatre. It is supposed to be a fictitious character, or one highly col- oured. It was well known, however, to his contemporaries, to be the Count de Brancas. The present anecdotes concern- ing the same person have been unknown to, or forgotten by, WAX-WORK. 285 Bruyere ; and are to the full as extraordinary as those which characterize Menalcas, or the Absent Man. The count was reading by the fireside, but Heaven knows with what degree of attention, when the nurse brought him his infant child. lie throws down the book ; he takes the child in his arms. He was playing with her, when an im- portant visitor was announced. Having forgot he had quitted his book, and that it was his child he held in his hands, he lia.'^tily flung the squaUing innocent on the table. The count was walking in the street, and the Duke de la Rochefoucault crossed the way to speak to him. — " God bless thee, poor man ! " exclaimed the count. Rochefoucault smiled, and was beginning to address him : — " Is it not enough," cried the count, interrupting him, and somewhat in a passion ; " is it not enough that I have said, at first, I have nothing for you ? Such lazy vagrants as you hinder a gen- tleman from walking the streets." Rochefoucault burst into a loud laugh, and awakening the absent man from his lethar- gy, he was not a little surprised, himself, that he should have taken his friend for an importunate mendicant ! La Fon- taine is recorded to have been one of the most absent men ; and Furetiere relates a most singular instance of this absence of mind. La Fontaine attended the burial of one of his friends, and some time afterwards he called to visit him. At first he was shocked at the information of his death ; but recovering from his surprise, observed — " True ! True ! I recollect I went to his funeral." WAX-WORK. We have heard of many curious deceptions occasioned by the imitative powers of wax-work. A series of anatomical sculptures in coloured wax was projected by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, under the direction of Fontana. Twenty apart 236 WAX-WORK. ments have been filled with those curious imitations. They represent in every possible detail, and in each successive stage of denudation, the organs of sense and reproduction ; the muscular, the vascular, the nervous, and the bony system. They imitate equally well the form, and more exactly the colouring of nature than injected preparations ; and they have been employed to perpetuate many transient phenom- ena of disease, of which no other art could have made so lively a record. There is a species of wax-work, which, though it can hardly claim the honours of the fine arts, is adapted to afford much pleasure. I mean figures of wax, which may be mod- elled with great truth of character. Menage has noticed a work of this kind. In the year 1675, the Duke de Maine received a gilt cabinet, about the size of a moderate table. On the door was inscribed, " The Apartment of Wit." The inside exhibited an alcove and a long gallery. In an arm-chair was seated the figure of the duke himself composed of wax, the resemblance the most perfect imaginable. On one side stood the Duke de la Rochefoucault, to whom he presented a paper of verses for his examination. M. de Marsillac, and Bossuet bishop of Meaux, were standing near the arm-chair. In the alcove, Madame de Thianges and Madame de la Fayette sat retired, reading a book. Boileau, the satirist, stood at the door of the gallery, hindering seven or eight bad poets from entermg. Near Boileau stood Racine, who seemed to beckon to La Fontaine to come forwards. All these figures were formed of wax ; and this phUosopliical baby -house, interesting for the personages it imitated, might induce a wish in some phi- losophers to play once more -with one. There was lately an old canon at Cologne who made a col- lection of small wax models of characteristic figures, such as personifications of Misery, in a haggard old man with a Bcanty crust and a brown jug before him ; or of Avarice, in a keen-looking Jew miser counting his gold : which were PASQUIN AND MAKKORIO. 287 done with such a spirit and reality that a Flemish painter, a Hogarth or Wiikie, could hardly have worked up the feel- ing of the figure more impressively. " All these were done with truth and expression which I could not have imagined the wax capable of exhibiting," says the lively writer of" " An Autumn near the Rhine." There is something very infantino in this taste ; but I lament that it is very rarely gratified by such close copiers of nature as was this old canon of Colosuft PASQUIN AND MARFORIO. All the world have heard of these statues : they have served as vehicles for the keenest satire in a land of the most uncontrolled despotism. The statue of Pasquin (from whence the word pasquinade ) and that of Marforio are placed in Rome in two difterent quartei^s. Marforio is an ancient statue of 3Iars found in the Forum, which the people have corrupted into Marforio. Pasquin is a marble statue, greatly mutilated, supposed to be the figure of a gladiator. To one or other of these statues, during the concealment of the night, are aflixed those satires or lampoons which the authors wish should be dispersed about Rome without any danger to them- selves. When Marforio is attacked, Pasquin comes to his succour ; and when Pasquin is the sufferer, he finds in Mar- forio a constant defender. Tlius, by a thrust and a parry, the most serious matters are disclosed : and the most illus- trious personages are attacked by their enemies, and defended by their friends. Misson, in his Travels in Italy, gives the following account of the origin of the name of the statue of Pasquin : — A satirical tailor, who lived at Rome, and whose name was Pasquin, amused himself by severe raillery, liberally bestowed on those who passed by his shoj) ; which in time became the lounge of the newsmongers. The tailor had precisely the 288 PASQUIN AND MARFORIO. talents lo head a regiment of satirical wits ; and had he had time to publish, he would have been the Peter Pindar of his day ; but his genius seems to have been satisfied to rest cross-legged on his shopboard. When any lampoons or amusing bon-mots were current at Rome, they were usually called, from his shop, pasquinades. After his death this statue of an ancient gladiator was found under the pavemcmt of his shop. It was soon set up, and by universal consent was inscribed with his name ; and they still attempt to raise him from the dead, and keep the caustic tailor ahve, in the marble gladiator of wit. There is a very rare work, with this title : — " Pasquillorum Tomi Duo ; " the first containing the verse, and the second the prose pasquinades, published at Basle, 1544. The rarity of this collection of satii-ical pieces is entirely owing to the arts of suppression practised by the papal government. Sallengre, in his literary Memoirs, has given an account of this work ; his own copy had formerly belonged to Daniel Heinsius, who, in two verses written in his hand, describes its rarity and the price it cost : — Roma meos fratres igni dedit, unica Phoenix Vivo, aureisque venio centum Heinsio. " Rome gave my brothers to the flames, but I survive a solitary Phoenix. Heinsius bought me for a hundred golden ducats." This collection contains a great number of pieces composed at different times, against the popes, cardinals, &c. They are not indeed materials for the historian, and they must be taken with grains of allowance. We find sarcastic epigrams on Leo X., and the infamous Lucretia, daughter of Alexander VI. : even the corrupt Romans of the day were capable of expressing themselves with the utmost freedom. Of Alex* ander VI. we have an apology for his conduct : Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum; Emerat iUc prius, vendere jure potest. "Alexander sells the keys, the altars, and Chnst; As he bought them first, he had a right to stU, (hem I " PASQUIN AND JIARFORIO. 289 On Lucretia : — Hoc tumulo donnit Lucretia nomine, sed re Thais; Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus! " Beneath this stone sleeps Lucretia by name, but by nature Tliais; the daughter, the wife, and the daughter-in-law of Alexander! " Leo X. was a frequent butt fbv the arrows of Pasquin :— Sacra sub extrema, si forte requiritis, hora. Cur Leo non potuit sumere ; vendiderat. " Do you ask why Leo did not take the sacrament on his death-bed? — How could he '? He had sold it ! " Many of these satirical touches depend on puns. Urban VII., one of the Barberini family, pillaged the Pantheon of brass to make cannon, on which occasion Pasquin was made to say : — Quod non fecerunt Barhari Rorase, fecit Barberini. On Clement VII., whose death was said to be occasioned by the prescriptions of his physician : — Curtius occidit Clementem; Curtius auro Donandus, per quem publica parta salus. " Dr. Curtius has killed the pope by his remedies; he ought to be re- munerated as a man who has cured the state." The following, on Paul III., are singular conceptions : — Papa Medusseura caput est, coma turba Nepotum ; Perseu csede caput, Csesaries periit. " The pope is the head of Jledusa ; the horrid tresses are his nephews ; Perseus, cut off the head, and then we shall be rid of these serpent-locks." Another is sarcastic — Ut canerent data multa olim sunt Vatibus sera: Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis? " Heretofore money was given to poets that they might sing: how much will you give me, Paul, to be silent? " This collection contains, among other classes, passages from the Scriptures which have been applied to the court of Rome ; to different nations and persons ; and one of ^'Sortes Vir- VOL. I. 19 290 FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS. giliance per Pasquillum coUectce" — passages from Virgil fro* quently happily applied ; and those who are curious in the history of those times will find this portion interest- ing. The work itself is not quite so rare as Daniel Hein- sius imagined ; the price might now reach from five to ten guineas. The satirical statues are placed at opposite ends of the town, so that there is always sutficient time to make Marforic.i reply to the gibes and jeers of Pasquin in walking from one to the other. They are an ingenious substitute for publishing to the world, what no Roman newspaper would dare to print. FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS. The ladies in Japan gild their teeth ; and those of the Indies paint them red. The pearl of teeth must be dyed black to be beautiful in Guzerat. In Greenland the women colour their faces with blue and yellow. However fresh the complexion of a Muscovite may be, she would think herself verj' ugly if she was not plastered over with paint. The Chinese must have their feet as diminutive as those of the she-goat ; and to render them thus, their youth is passed in tortures. In ancient Persia an aquiline nose was often thought worthy of the crown ; and if there was any compe- tition between two princes, the people generally went by this criterion of majesty. In some countries, the mothers break the noses of their children ; and in others press the head between two boards, that it may become square. The mod- ern Persians have a strong aversion to red hair : the Turks, on the contrary, are warm admirers of it. The female Hot- tentot receives from the hand of her lover, not silks nor wreaths of flowers, but warm guts and reeking tripe, to dress herself with enviable ornaments. In China small round eyes are liked ; and the girls are FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS. 291 continually plucking their eye-brows, that they may be thin and long. The Turkish women dip a gold brush in the tinc- ture of a blnck drug, which they pass over their eye-brows. It is too visible by day, but looks shining by night. Thej tinge their nails with a rose-colour. An African beauty must liave small eyes, thick lips, a large flat nose, and a skin beautifully black. The Emperor of Monomotapa would not change his amiable negress for the most brilliant European beauty. An ornament for the nose appears to us perfectly unneces- sary. The Peruvians, however, think otherwise; and they hang on it a weighty ring, the thickness of which is propor- tioned by the rank of their husbands. The custom of boring it, as our ladies do their ears, is very common in several nations. Through the perforation are hung various materials ; such as green crystal, gold, stones, a single and sometimes a great number of gold rings. This is rather troublesome to them in blowing their noses ; and the fact is, as some have informed us, that the Indian ladies never perform this very useful operation. The female head-dress is carried in some countries to sin- gular extravagance. The Chinese fair carries on her head the figure of a certain bird. This bird is composed of cop- per or of gold, according to the quality of the person ; the wings spread out, fall over the front of the head-dress, and conceal the temples. The tail, long and open, forms a beau- tiful tuft of feathers. The beak covers the top of the nose ; the neck is fastened to the body of the artificial animal by a spring, that it may the more freely play, and tremble at the slightest motion. The extravagance of the Myantses is far more ridiculous than the above. They carry on their heads a slight board, rather longer than a foot, and about six inches broad ; with this they cover their hair, and seal it with wax. Tliey can- not lie down, or lean, without keeping the neck straight; and the country being very woody, it is not uncommon to find 2>)2 MODERN PLATONISM. them with their head-dress entangled in the trees. When- ever they comb their hair, they pass an hour by the fire in melting the wax ; but this combing is only performed once or twice a year. The inhabitants of the land of Natal wear caps or bon- nets, from six to ten inches high, composed of the fat of oxen. They then gradually anoint the head with a purer grease, which mixing with the hair, fastens these bonnets for their lives. MODERN PLATONISM. Erasmus in his Age of Religious Revolution expressed an alarm, which in some shape has been since realized. He strangely, yet acutely observes, that " literature began to make a great and happy progress; but," he adds, "I fear two things — that the study of Hebrew will promote Judaism^ and the study of philology will revive paganism." He speaks to the same purpose in the Adages, c. 189, as Jortin observes. Blackwell, in his curious Life of Homer, after showing that the ancient oracles were the fountains of knowledge, and that the votaries of the god of Delphi had their faith confirmed by the oracle's perfect acquaintance with the country, parentage, and fortunes of the suppliant, and many predictions verified ; that besides all this, the oracles that have reached us discover a wide knowledge of everything relating to Greece ; — this learned writer is at a loss to account for a knowledge that he thinks has sometliing divine in it : it was a knowledge to be found no where in Greece but among the Oracles. He would account for this phenomenon, by supposing there existed a succession of learned men devoted to this purpose. He says, " Either we must admit the knowledge of the priests, or turn converts to the ancients, and believe in the omniscience of Apollo, which in this age I know nobody in hazard of." Yet to the aston- MODERN PLATONISM. 293 ishment of diis writer, were he now living, he would have witnessed this incredible fact ! Even Erasmus himself miglit have wondered. We discover the origin of modern platonism, as it may 1)0 distinguished, ani.ong the Italians. About the middle of the fifteenth century, some time before the Turks had become masters of Constantinople, a great number of philosophers flourished. Gemisthus Pletho, was one distinguished by his genius, his erudition, and his fervent passion for platonlsm. Mr. Roscoe notices Pletho : " His discourses had so power- ful an effect upon Cosmo de' Medici, who was his constant auditor, that he established an academy at Florence for the sole purpose of cultivating this new and more elevated species of philosophy." The learned Marsilio Ficino trans- lated Plotinus, that great archimage of platonic Mysticism. Such were Pletho's eminent abilities, that in his old age those whom his novel system had greatly irritated either feared or respected him. He had scarcely breathed his last when they began to abuse Plato and our Pletho. The fol- lowing account is written by George of Trebizond. " Lately has risen amongst us a second INIahomet : and this second, if we do not take care, will exceed in greatness the first, by the dreadful consequences of his wicked doctrine, as the first has exceeded Plato. A disciple and rival of this philosopher in philosophy, in eloquence, and in science, he had fixed his residence in the Peloponnese. His common name was Gemisfhus, but he assumed that of Pletho. Per- haps Gemisthus, to make us believe more easily that he was descended from heaven, and to engage us to receive more readily his doctrine and his new law, wished to change his name, according to the manner of the ancient patriarchs, of whom it is said, that at the time the name was changed they were called to the "-reatest things. He has written with no vulgar art, and with no common elegance. He has given new rules for the conduct of life, and for the regulation of human affairs ; and at the same time has vomited forth a great nura- 294 MODERN PLATONISM. ber of blasjihemies against the Catholic religion. He was 60 zealous a platonist that he entertained no other sentiments than those of Plato, concerning the nature of the gods, souls, sacrifices, &c. I have heard him myself, when we were to- gether at Florence, say, that in a few years all men on the face of the earth would embrace with one common consent, and with one mind, a single and sim{)le religion, at the first instructions which should be given by a single preaching. And when I asked him if it would be the religion of Jesu3 Christ, or that of Mahomet? he answered, 'Neither one nor the other ; but a third, which will not greatly differ from 'paganism.' These Avords I heard with so much indignation, that since that time I have always hated him : I look upon him as a dangerous viper ; and I cannot think of him with- out abhorrence." The pious writer might have been satisfied to have be- stowed a smile of pity or contempt. AVhen Pletho died, full of years and honours, the malice of his enemies collected all its venom. This circumstance seems to prove that his abilities must have been great indeed, to have kept such crowds silent. Several catholic writers lament that his book was burnt, and regret the loss of Pletho's work ; which, they say, was not designed to subvert the Christian religion, but only to unfold the system of Plato, and to collect what he and other philosophers had written on religion and politics. Of his religious scheme, the reader may judge by this summary account. The general title of the volume ran thus : " Tliis book treats of the laws of the best form of government, and what all men must observe in their public and private stations, to live together in the most perfect, the most innocent, and the most happy manner." The whole was divided into three books. The titles of the chapters where paganism was openly inculcated are reported by Gen- nadius, (\'ho condemned it to the flames, but who has not thought proper to enter into the manner of his arguments. MODERN PLATONISM. 295 Tlie extravagance of this new legislator appeared, above all, in the articles which concerned religion. He acknowledges a plurality of gods : some superior, whom he placed above the heavens ; and the others inferior, on this side the heavens The first existing from the remotest antiquity ; the others younger, and of different ages. He gave a king to all these gods, and he called him ZEY2, or Jupiter; as the pagans named this power formerly. According to him, the stars had a soul ; the demons were not malignant spirits ; and the world was eternal. He established polygamy, and was even inclined to a community of women. All his work was filled with such reveries, and with not a few impieties, which my pious author has not ventured to give. What were the intentions of Pletho? If the work was only an arranged system of paganism, or the platonic philos- ophy, it might have been an innocent, if not a curious volume. He was learned and humane, and had not passed his life entirely in the solitary recesses of his study. To strain human curiosity to the utmost limits of human credibility, a modern Pletho has risen in Mr. Thomas Taylor, who, consonant to the platonic philosophy, in the present day religiously professes polytheism ! At the close of the eigh- teenth century, be it recorded, were published many volumes, in which the author affects to avow himself a zealous Platon- ist, and asserts that he can prove that the Christian religion is " a bastardized and barbarous Platonism ! " The divinities of Plato are the divinities to be adored, and we are to be taught to call God, Jupiter ; the Virgin, Venus ; and Christ, Cupid ! The Piad of Homer allegorized, is converted into a Greek bible of the arcana of nature! Extraordinary as this literary lunacy may appear, we must observe, that it stands not singular in the annals of the history of the human mind. The Florentine academy, which Cosmo founded, had, no doubt, some classical enthusiasts ; but who, perhaps, according to the political character of their country, were prudent and reserved. The platonic furor, liowever, appears to have 296 MODERN PLATONISM. reached other countries. In the reign of Louis XII. a scholar named Hemon de la Fosse, a native of Abbeville, by continually reading the Greek and Latin writers, became mad enough to persuade himself that it was impossible that the religion of such great geniuses as Homer, Cicero, and Virgil was a false one. On the 25th of August, 1503, being at church, he suddenly snatched the host from the hands of the priest, at the moment it was raised, exclaiming — " What ! always this folly ! " He was immediately seized. In the hope that he would abjure his extravagant errors, they de- layed his punishment ; but no exhortation nor entreaties availed. He persisted in maintaining that Jupiter was the sovereign God of the universe, and that there was no other paradise than the Elysian fields. He was burnt alive, after having first had his tongue pierced, and his hand cut off. Thus perished an ardent and learned youth, who ought only to have been condemned as a Bedlamite. Dr. More, the most rational of our modern Platonists, abounds, however, with the most extravagant reveries, and was inflated witli egotism and enthusiasm, as much as any of his mystic predecessors. He conceived that he communed with the Divinity itself! that he had been shot as a fiery dart into the world, and he hoped he had hit the mark. He carried his self-conceit to such extravagance, that he thought his urine smelt like violets, and his body in the spring season had a sweet odour ; a perfection peculiar to himself. These visionaries indulge the most fanciful vanity. The " sweet odours," and that of " the violets," might, however, have been real — for they mark a certain stage of the disease of diabetes, as appears in a medical tract by the slder Dr. Latham. ANECDOTES OF FASHION. 297 ANECDOTES OF FASHION. A vol iiME on this subject might be made very curious and entertaining, for our ancestors were not less vacillating, and perhaps more capriciously grotesque, though with iuti- nitely less taste, than the present generation. Were a philosopher and an artist, as well as an antiquary, to compose such a work, much diversified entertainment, and some curious investigation of the progress of the arts and taste, would doubtless be the result ; the subject otherwise appears of trifling value ; the very farthing pieces of history. The origin of many fashions was in the endeavour to conceal some deformity of the inventor : hence the cushions, ruffs, hoops, and other monstrous devices, if a reigning beauty chanced to have an unequal hip, those vho had very handsome hips would load them with that fa'ist- rump which the other was compelled by the unkindnes^. of nature to substitute. Patches were invented in England in the reign of Edward VI. by a foreign lady, who in this manner ingen- iously covered a wen on her neck. Full-bottomed wigs were invented by a French barber, one Duviller, whose name they jjcrpetuated, for the purpose of concealing an elevation in the shoulder of the Dauphin. Charles VII. of France introduced long coats to hide his ill-made legs. Shoes with very long points, full two feet in length, were invented by Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou, to conceal a large excrescence on one of his feet. When Francis I. was obliged to wear his hair short, owing to a wound he received in the head, it became a prevailing fashion at court. Others, on (he con- trary, adapted fjishions to set off their peculiar beauties: as Isabella of Bavaria, remarkable for her gallantry, and the fairness of her complexion, introduced the fashion of leaving the shoulders and part of the neck uncovered. Fashions have frequently originated from circumstances as silly as the following one. Isabella, daughter of Philip II. 298 ANECDOTES OF FASHION. and wife of the Archduke Albert, vowed not to change her linen till Ostend was taken ; this siege, unluckily for her comfort, lasted three years ; and the supposed colour of the archduchess's linen gave rise to a fashionable colour, hence called risabeau, or the Isabella ; a kind of whitish-yellow- dingy. Sometimes they originate in some temporary event ; as after the battle of Steenkirk, where the allies wore largo cravats, by which the French frequently seized hold of them, a circumstance perpetuated on the medals of Louis XIV., cravats were called Steenkirks ; and after the battle of Rarailies, wigs received that denomination. The court, in all ages and in every country, are the mod- ellers of fashions ; so that all the ridicule, of which these are so susceptible, must fall on them, and not upon their servile imitators the citizens. This complaint is made even so far back as in 1586, by Jean des Caures, an old French moraUst, who, in declaiming against the fashions of his day, notices one, of the ladies carrying mirrors fixed to their waists, which seemed to employ their eyes in perpetual activity. From this mode will result, according to honest Des Caures, their eternal damnation. " Alas ! (he exclaims) in what an age do we live : to see such depravity which we see, that induces them even to bring into church these scandalous mir- rors hanging about their waists ! Let aU histories, divine, human, and profane, be consulted ; never will it be found that these objects of vanity were ever thus brought into pub- lic by the most meretricious of the sex. It is true, at present none but the ladies of the court venture to wear them ; but long it will not be before every citizens daughter and every female servant, will have them ! " Such in all times has been the rise and decline of fashion ; and the absurd mimicry of the citizens, even of the lowest classes, to their very ruin, in straining to rival the newest fashion, has mortified and galled the courtier. On tliis subject old Camden, in his Remains, relates a story of a trick played off on a citizen, which I give in the plain ANECDOTES OF FASHION. 299 ness of his own venerable style. " Sir Philip Calthrop purged John Drakes, the shoemaker of Norwich, in the time of King Henry VIII. of the proud humour which our people have to be of the gentlemen's cut. This knight bought on a time as much fine French tawny cloth as sliould make him a gown, and sent it to the taylor's to be made. John Di'akes, a shoemaker of that tov\Ti, coming to this said taylor's, and seeing the knight's gown cloth lying there, liking it well, caused the taylor to buy him as much of the same cloth and price to the same intent, and further bade him to make it of the same fashion that the knight would have his made of. Not long after, the knight coming to the taylor's to take measure of his gown, perceiving the like cloth lying there, asked of the taylor whose it was ? Quoth tlie tayloi', it is John Drakes's the shoemaker, who will have it made of the self-same fashion that your' s is made of! 'Well!' said the knight, •• in good time be it ! I will have mine made as fuU of cuts as thy shears can make it.' ' It shall be done ! ' said the taylor ; whereupon, because the time drew near, he made haste to finish both their garments. John Drakes had no time to go to the taylor's till Christmas-day, for serving his customers, when he hoped to have worn his gown ; perceiv- ing the same to he full of cuts began to swear at the taylor, for the making his Kown after that sort. ' I have done nothing,' quoth the taylor, ' but that you bid me ; for as Sir Philip Calthrop's garment is, even so have I made yours ! ' ' By my latchet ! ' quoth John Drakes, ' / will never wear ffentlemen's fashions again ! ' " Sometimes fashions are quite reversed in their use in one age from another. Bags, when first in fashion in France, were only worn en deshabille ; in visits of ceremony, the hair was tied by a riband and floated over the shoulders, which is exactly reversed in the present fashion. In the year 173o the men had no hats but a little chapeau de bras ; in 1745 they wore a very small hat ; in 1755 they wore an enormous one, as may be seen in Jeffrey's curious " Collection of Habits 300 ANECDOTES OF FASfflON. in all Nations." Old Puttenham, in " The Art of Poesie," p. 239, on the present topic gives some curious information. " Henry VIII. caused his own head, and all his courtiers, to be polled, and his beard to be cut short ; before that time it was thought more decent, both for old men and young, to be all shaven, and weare long haire, either rounded or square. Now again at this time (Elizabeth's reign), the young gen- tlemen of the court have taken up the long haire trayling on their shoulders, and think this more decent; for \^hat respect I would be glad to know." ^Vlien the fair sex were accustomed to behold their lovers with beards, the sight of a shaved chin excited feelings of horror and aversion ; as much indeed as, in this less heroic age, would a gallant whose luxuriant beard should " Stream like a meteor to the troubled air." Wlien Louis VII., to obey the injunctions of his bishops, cropped his hair, and shaved his beard, Eleanor, his consort, found him, with this unusual appearance, very ridiculous, and soon very contemptible. She revenged herself as she thought proper, and the poor shaved king obtained a divorce. She then married the Count of Anjou, afterwards our Henry II. She had for her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poitou and Guienne ; and this was the origin of those wars which for three hundred years ravaged France, and cost the French three millions of men. All which, probably, had never oc- curred had Louis VII. not been so rash as to crop his head and shave his beard, by which he became so disgustful in the eyes of our Queen Eleanor. We cannot perhaps sympathize with the feelhigs of her Majesty, though at Constantinople she might not have been considered unreasonable. There must be something more powerful in beards and mustachios than we are quite aware of; for when these were in fashion — and long after this was written — the fashion has returned on us — with what enthu- siasm were they not contemplated ! When mustachios were ANECDOTES OF FASHION 301 in general use, an author, in his Elements of Education, pub- lished in 1 640, thinks that " hairy excrement," as Armado in " Love's Labour Lost " calls it, contributed to make men val- orous. He says, " I have a favourable opinion of that young gentleman who is curious in fine mustachios. The time he employs in adjusting, dressing, and curling them, is no lost time ; for the more he contemplates his mustachios, the more his mind will cherish and be animated by masculine and courageous notions." The best reason that could be given for wearing the longest and largest beard of any Englishman was that of a worthy clergyman in Elizabeth's reign, " that no act of his life might be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance." The grandfather of Mrs. Thomas, the Corinna of Crom- well, the literary friend of Pope, by her account, " was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard and curling his ivhis- kers ; during which time he was always read to." Taylor, the water poet, humorously describes the great variety of beards in his time, which extract may be found in Grey's Hudibras, Vol. I. p. 300. The beard dmndled gradually under the two Charleses, till it was reduced into whiskers, and became extinct in the reign of James II., as if its fatal- ity had been connected with that of the house of Stuart. The hair has in all ages been an endless topic for the declamation of the moralist, and the favourite object of fash- ion. If the beau ynonde wore their hair luxuriant, or their wig enormous, the preachers, in Charles the Second's reign, instantly were seen in the pulpit with their hair cut shorter, and their sermon longer, in consequence ; respect was, how- ever, paid by the world to the size of the wig, in spite of the hair-cutter in the pulpit. Our judges, and till lately our phy- sicians, well knew its magical effect. In the reign of Charles II. the hair-dress of the ladies was very elaborate ; it was not only curled and frizzled with the nicest art, but set off with certain artificial curls, then too emphatically known by 302 ANECDOTES OF FASHIO>J. the pathetic terms of heart'breakers and love-lochs. So late as William and Mary, lads, and even children, wore wngs ; and if they had not wigs, they curled their hair to resemble this fashionable ornament. Women then were the hair- dressers. There are flagrant follies in fashion which must be endured while they reign, and which never appear ridiculous till they are out of fashion. In the reign of Henry III. of France, they could not exist without an abundant use of comfits. All the world, the grave and the gay, carried in their pockets a comjit-hox, as we do snuff-boxes. They used them even on the most solemn occasions ; when the Duke of Guise was shot at Blois, he was found with his comfit-box in his hand. — Fashions indeed have been carried to so extravagant a length, as to have become a public offence, and to have required the uiterference of government. Short and tight breeches were so much the rage in France, that Charles V. was compelled to banish tliis disgusting mode by edicts, which may be found m Mezerai. An Itahan author of the fifteenth century sup- poses an Italian traveller of nice modesty would not pass through France, that he might not be offended by seeing men whose clothes rather exposed their nakedness than hid it The very same fashion was the complaint in the remoter period of our Chaucer, in his Parson's Tale. In the reign of our Elizabeth the reverse of all this took place ; then the mode of enomious breeches was pushed to a most laughable excess. The beaux of that day stuffed out their breeches with rags, feathers, and other light matters, tiU they brought them out to an enormous size. They re- sembled wool-sacks, and in a public spectacle they were obliged to raise scafTolds for the seats of these ponderous beaux. To accord with this fantastical taste, the ladies in- vented large hoop farthingales ; two lovers aside could surely never have taken one another by the hand. In a preceding reign the fashion ran on square toes ; insomuch that a pro- damation was issued that no person should wear shoes al)ove ANECDOTES OF FASHION. 303 six inches square at the toes ! Then succeeded picked pointed shoes ! The nation was again, in the reign of Eliza- beth, put under tlie royal authority. " In that time," says honest John Stowe, " he was held the greatest gallant that had the deepest ruff and longest rapier : the offence to the eye of the one, and hurt unto the life of the subject that fixxna by the other — this caused her Majestic to make proclamation against them both, and to place selected grave citizens at ever?/ gate, to cut the ruffes, and breake the rapiers' points ct all passengers that exceeded a yeard in length of their rapiers, and a nayle of a yeard in depth of their ruffes." These " grave citizens," at every gate cutting the ruffs and breaking the rapiers, must doubtless have encountered in their ludicrous employment some stubborn opposition ; but this regidation was, in the spirit of that age, despotic and effectual. Paul, the Emperor of Russia, one day ordered tbe soldiers to stop every passenger who wore pantaloons, and witli their hangers to cut off, upon the leg, the offending part of these supei-fluous breeches ; so that a man's legs depended gi'eatly on the adroitness and humanity of a Russ or a Cossack ; however this war against pantaloons was very successful, and obtained a complete triumph in favour of the breeches in the course of the week. A shameful extravagance in dress has been a most vener- able folly. In the reign of Richard II. their dress was sumptuous beyond belief. Sir John Arundel had a change of no less than fifty-two new suits of cloth of gold tissue. The prelates indulged in all the ostentatious luxury of dress. Chaucer says, they had *' chaunge of clothing everie daie." Brantome records of Elizabeth, Queen of Philip II. of Spain, tliat she never wore a gown twice; this was told him by her majesty's own tailleur, who from a poor man soon bes. They also made a bath of milk. Elder beauties bathed in wine, to get rid of their wrinkles ; and perhaps not without reason, wine being a great astringent. Unwrinkled beauties bathed in milk, to preserve the softness and sleekness of the skin. Our venerable beauties of the Elizabethan age were initiated coquettes ; and the mysteries of their toilet mi";ht be worth unveihng. The reign of Charles II. was the dominion of French fashions. In some respects the taste was a little lighter, but the moral effect of dress, and which no doubt it has, was much worse. The dress was very inflammatory ; and the nudity of the beauties of the portrait-painter. Sir Peter Lely, has been observed. The queen of Charles II. exposed her breast and shoulders without even the gloss of the lightest gauze ; and the tucker, instead of standing up on her bo.'om, is with licentious boldness turned down, and lies upon her stays. This custom of baring the bosom was much exclaimed against by the authors of that age. That honest divine, Richard Baxter, wrote a preface to a book, entitled, "A just and seasonable reprehension of naked breasts and shoulders." In 1672 a book was published, entitled, "New instructions ANKCDOTES OF FASHION. 311 Unto youth for their behaviour, and also a discourse upon Borae innovations of habits and dressing ; against powdering of hair^ naked breasts, black spots (or patches), and other unseemly customs.'' A Avhimsical fashion now prevailed auionjr the ladies, of strangely ornamenting their faces with abundance of black patches cut into grotesque forms, such as a coach and horses, owls, rings, suns, moons, crowns, cross and crosslets. The autlior has prefixed two ladies' heads ; the one representing Virtue, and the other Vice. Virtue is a lady modestly habited, with a black velvet hood, and a plain white kerchief on her neck, with a border. Vice wears no handkerchief; her stays cut low, so that they display great part of the breasts ; and a variety of fantastical patches on her face. The innovations of fashions in the reign of Charles II. were w^atchcd with a jealous eye by the remains of those strict puritans, who now could only pour out their bile in such solemn admonitions. They affected all possible plain- ness and sanctity. AVhen courtiers wore monstrous wigs they cut their hair short ; when they adopted hats with broad plumes, they clapped on round black caps, and screwed up their pale religious faces ; and when shoe-buckles were revived, they wore strings. The sublime Milton, perhaps, exulted in his intrepidity of still wearing latchets ! The Tatler ridicules Sir William Whitelocke for his singularity in still affecting them. " Tliou dear Will Shoestring, how shall I draw thee ? Thou dear outside, will you be combing your wig, playing with your box, or picking your teeth," &c. Wigs and snuff-boxes were then the rage. Steele's own wig, it is recorded, made at one time a considerable part of his annual expenditure. His large black periwig cosi him, even at that day, no less than forty guineas ! — We wear nothing at present in this degree of extravagance. But such a wig was the idol of fashion, and they were performing perpetually their worship with infinite self-complacency; combing their wigs in public was then the very spirit of gallantry and rank 312 ANECDOTES OF FASHION. The hero of Richardson, youthful and elegant as he wished him to be, is represented waiting at an assignation, and de« scribino' his sufferings in bad weather by lamenting that " his wig and his linen were dripping with the hoar frost dissolving on them." Even Betty, Clarissa's ladj's maid, is described as " tapping on her snuff-hox" and fi*equently taking snuff. At this time nothing was so monstrous as the head-dresses of the ladies in Queen Anne's reign : they formed a kind of edifice of three stories high ; and a fashionable lady of that day much resembles the mythological figure of Cybele, the mother of the gods, with three towers on her head. It is not worth noticing the changes in fashion, unless to ridicule thera. However, there are some who find amuse- ment in these records of luxurious idleness ; these thousand and one follies! Modern fashions, till very lately a purer taste has obtained among our females, were generally mere copies of obsolete ones, and rarely originally fantastical. The dress of some of our beaux will only be known in a few years hence by their caricatures. In 1751 the dress of a dandy is described in the Inspector. A black velvet coat, a green and silver waistcoat, yellow velvet breeches, and blue stockings. This too was the rera of black silk breeches ; an extraordinary novelty, against which " some frowsy people attempted to raise up worsted in emulation." A satirical writer has described a buck about forty years ago ; * one could hardly have suspected such a gentleman to have been one of our contemporaries. "A coat of light green, with sleeves too small for the arms, and buttons too big for the sleeves ; a pair of Manchester fine stuff breeches, without money in the pockets ; clouded silk stockings, but no legs ; a club of hair behind larger than the head that carries it ; a hat of the size of sixpence on a block not worth a far- thing." As this article may probably arrest the volatile eyes of my fair readers, let me be permitted to felicitate them on their * This was written in 1790. ANECDOTES OF FASfflON. 313 ft improvement in elegance in the forms of their dress ; and the taste and knowledge of art which they frequently exhibit But let me remind them that there are universal principles of beauty in dress independent of all fashions. Tacitus remarks of Poppea, the consort of Nero, that she concealed rt part of her face ; to the end that, the imagination having fuller play by irritating curiosity, they might think higher of her beauty than if the whole of her face had been exposed. The sentiment is beautifully expressed by Tasso, and it will not be difficult to remember it : — " Non copre sue bellezze, e non I'espose." I conclude by a poem, written in my youth, not only be- cause the late Sir Walter Scott once repeated some of the lines, from memory, to remind me of it, and has preserved it in "The English Minstrelsy," but also as a memorial of some fashions which have become extinct in my own days. STANZAS ADDKESSED TO LAURA, ENTREATING HER NOT TO PAINT, TO POWDEB, OB TO GAME, BUT TO RETREAT INTO THE COUNTRY. Ah, Laura ! quit the noisy town, And Fashion's persecuting reign: Health wanders on the breezy down, And Science on the silent plain. How long from Art's reflected hues Shalt thou a mimic charm receive? Believe, my fair! the faithful muse, They spoil the blush they cannot give. Must ruthless art, with tortuous steel, Thy artless locks of gold deface. In serpent folds their charms conceal, And spoil, at every touch, a grace. Too sweet thy youth's enchanting bloom To waste on midnight's sordid crews: Let ^vTinkled age the night consume. For age has but its hoards to lose. 314 A SENATE OF JESUITS. Sacred to love and sweet repose, Behold that trellis'd bower is nigh! That bower tlie verdant walls enclose, Safe from pursuing Scandal's eye. There, as in everv lock of gold Some flower of pleasing hue I weave, A goddess shall the muse behold, And many a votive sigh shall heave. So the rude Tartar's iioly rite A feeble mohtal once array'd; Then trembled in that mortal's sight. And owu'd divine the power he made.* A SENATE OF JESUITS. In a book entitled " Interets et Maximes des Princes et des Etats Souverains, par M. le due de Rohan ; Cologne, 1666," an anecdote is recorded concerning the Jesuits, which neither Puffendorf nor Vertot has noticed in his history. When Sigismond, king of Sweden, was elected king of Poland, he made a treaty with the states of Sweden, by which he obliged himself to pass every fifth year in that kingdom. By his wars with the Ottoman court, with Mus- covy, and Tartary, compelled to remain in Poland to encounter these powerful enemies, during fifteen years he failed in accomplishing his promise. To remedy this in some shape, by the advice of the Jesuits, who had gained an ascendancy over him, he created a senate to reside at Stock- holm, composed of forty chosen Jesuits. He presented them with letters-patent, and invested them with the royal author itj. While this senate of Jesuits was at Dantzic, waiting for a * The Lama, or God of the Tartars, is composed of such frail materials 818 mere mortality; contrived, however, by the power of priestcraft, to appear immortal; the succession of Lamas never failing! A SENATE OF JESUITS. 315 tair wind to set sail for Stockholm, he published an edict that the Swedes should receive them as his own royal person. A public council was immediately held. Charles, the uncle of Sigismond, the prelates, and the lords, resolved to prepare for them a splendid and magnificent entry. But in a private council, they came to very contrary reso- lutions : for the prince said, he could not bear that a senate of priests should command, in preference to all the princes and lords, natives of the country. All the others agreed w-ith him in rejecting this holy senate. The archbishop rose, and said, " Since Sigismond has disdained to be our king, we also must not acknowledge him as such ; and from this mo- ment we should no longer consider ourselves as his subjects. His authority is in suspenso, because he has bestowed it on the Jesuits who form this senate. The people have not yet acknowledged them. In this interval of resignation on the one side, and assumption on the other, I absolve you all of the fidelity the king may claim from you as his Swedish subjects." The prince of Bithynia addressing himself to Prince Charles, uncle of the king, said, " I own no other king than you ; and I believe you are now obliged to receive us as your affectionate subjects, and to assist us to hunt these vermin from the state." All the others joined him, and ac- knowledged Charles as their lawful monarch. Having resolved to keep their declaration for some time secret, they deliberated in what manner they were to receive and to precede this senate in their entry into the harbour, who were now on board a great galleon, which had anchored two leagues from Stockholm, that they might enter more magnif- icently in the night, when the fire-works they had prepared would appear to the greatest advantage. About tlie time of their reception, Prince Charles, accompanied by twenty-five or thirty vessels, appeared before this senate. Wheeling about and forming a caracol of ships, they discharged a vol- ley, and emptied all their cannon on the galleon bearing this senate, whicih had its sides pierced through with the balls. 316 THE LOVER'S HEART. The galleon immediately filled with water and sunk, without one of the unfortunate Jesuits being assisted : on the con- trary, their assailants cried to them that this was the time to perform some, miracle, such as they were accustomed to do in India and Japan ; and if they chose, they could walk on tho waters ! The report of the cannon, and the smoke which the pow- der occasioned, prevented either the cries or the submersion of the holy fathers from being observed : and as if they were conducting the senate to the town, Charles entered tri- umphantly ; w^ent into the church, where they sung Te Deum ; and to conclude the night, he partook of the enter- tainment which had been prepared for this ill-fated senate. The Jesuits of the city of Stockholm having come, about midnight, to pay their respects to the Fathers, perceived their loss. They directly posted up placards of excommuni- cation against Charles and his adherents, who had caused the senate of Jesuits to perish. They urged the people to rebel ; but they were soon expelled the city, and Charles made a public profession of Lutheranism. Sigismond, King of Poland, began a war with Charles in 1604, M'hich lasted two yeai-s. Disturbed by the invasions of the Tartars, the Muscovites, and the Cossacks, a truce was concluded ; but Sigismond lost both his crowns, by his bigoted attachment to Roman Catholicism. THE LOVER'S HEART. The following tale, recorded in the Historical Memoirs of Champagne, by Bougier, has been a favourite narrative with the old romance writers ; and the principal incident, however objectionable, has been displayed in several modern poems. Howell, in his " Familiar Letters," in one addressed to Ben Jonson, recommends it to him as a subject " which THE lo\t:r'S heart. 317 peradventure you may make use of in your way ; " and con- eludes by saying, " in my opinion, which vails to yours, this is choice and rich stuff for you to put upon your loom, and make a curious web of." The Lord de Coucy, vassal to the Count de Champagne* was one of the most accomplished youths of his time. He loved, with an excess of passion, the lady of the Lord da Fayel, who felt a reciprocal affection. With the most poig- nant grief this lady heard from her lover, that he had re- solved to accompany the king and the Count de Champagne to the wars of the Holy Land ; but she would not oppose his wishes, because she hoped that his absence might dissipate the jealousy of her husband. The time of departure having come, these two lovers parted with sorrows of the most lively tenderness. The lady, in quitting her lover, presented him with some rings, some diamonds, and with a string that she had woven herself of his own hair, intermixed with silk and buttons of large pearls, to serve him, according to the fashion of those days, to tie a magnificent hood which covered his helmet. This h-e gratefully accepted. In Palestine, at the siege of Acre, in 1191, in gloriously ascending the ramparts, he received a wound, which wa? declared mortal. He employed the few moments he had tc live in writing to the Lady du Fayel ; and he poured forth the fervour of his soul. He ordered his squire to embalm his heart after his death, and to convey it to his beloved mistress, with the presents he had received from her hands in quitting her. The squire, faithful to the dying injunction of his master, returned to France, to present the heart and the gifts to the lady of Du Fayel. But when he approached the castle of this lady, he concealed himself in the neighbouring wood, watching some favourable moment to complete his promise. He had the misfortune to be observed by the husband of this lady, who recognized him, and who immediately sus- pected he came in search of liis wife with some message 318 THE LOVER'S HEART. from his mastei'. He threatened to deprive him of his hfe if he did not divulge the occasion of his return. Tlie squire assured liim that his master was dead ; but Du Fayel not beh'evin"- it, drew his sword on him. This man, frightened at the ])ei'il in which he found himself, confessed every thing ; and put into his hands the heart and letter of his master. Du Fayel was maddened by the fellest passions, and he took a wild and horrid revenge. He ordered his cook to mince the heart ; and having mixed it with meat, he caused a favourite ragout, which he knew pleased the taste of his wife, to be made, and had it served to her. The lady ate heartily of the dish. After the repast, Du Fayel inquired of his wife if she had found the ragout according to her taste : she answered him that she had found it excellent. "It is for this reason that I caused it to be served to you, for it is a kind of meat which you very much liked. You have, Madam," the savage Du Fayel continued, " eaten the heart of the Lord de Coucy." But this the lady would not be- lieve, till he showed her the letter of her lover, with the string of his hair, and the diamonds she had given him. Shuddering in the anguish of her sensations, and urged by the utmost despair, she told him — '* It is true that I loved that heart, because it merited to be loved : for never could it find its superior ; and since I have eaten of so noble a meat, and that my stomach is the tomb of so precious a heart, I will take care that nothing of inferior worth shall ever be mixed with it." Grief and passion choked her utterance. She retired to her chamber ; she closed the door for ever ; and refusing to accept of consolation or food, the amiable victim expii'ed on the fourth day. THE HISTORY OF GLOVES. 319 THE HISTORY OF GLOVES. Thk present learned and curious dissertation is compiled from the papers of an ingenious antiquary, from the " Pres- ent State of the Republic of Letters," vol. x. p. 289. The antiquity of this part of dress will form our first in- quiry ; and we shall then show its various uses in the several ajres of the world. It has been imagined that gloves are noticed in the 108th Psalm, where the royal prophet declares, he will cast his shoe over Edom ; and still farther back, supposing them to be used in the times of the Judges, Ruth iv. 7, where the cus- tom is noticed of a man taking ofi" his shoe and giving it to his neighbour, as a pledge for redeeming or exchanging any thing. The word in these two texts, usually translated shoe by the Chaldee paraphrast, in the latter is rendered glove. Casaubon is of opinion that gloves were worn by the Chal- deans, from the word here mentioned being explained in the Talmud Lexicon, the clothing of thi hand. Xenophon gives a clear and distinct account of gloves. Speaking of the manners of the Persians, as a proof of their effeminacy he observes, that, not satisfied with covering their head and their feet, they also guarded their hands against the cold with thick gloves. Homer, describing Laertes at work in his garden, represents him with gloves on his hands, to secure them from the thorns. Varro, an ancient writer, is an evidence in favour of their antiquity among the Romans. In lib. ii. cap. 55, De Re jRusticd, he says, that olives gath- ered by the naked hand are preferable to those gathered with gloves. Athenceus speaks of a celebrated glutton who always came to table with gloves on his hands, that he might be able to handle and eat the meat while hot, and devour more than the rest of the company. These authorities show that the ancients were not stran- gers to the use of gloves, though their use was not commoa 320 THE HISTORY OF GLOVES. In a hot climate to wear gloves implies a considerable degree of effeminacy. We can more clearly trace the early use of jjloves in northern than in southern nations. When the an- cient severity of manners declined, the use of gloves prevailed among the Romans ; but not without some opposition from the philosophers. Masonius, a philosopher, who lived at the close of the first century of Christianity, among other invec- tives against the corruption of the age, says. It is shameful that persons in perfect health should clothe their hands and feet with soft and hairy coverings. Their convenience, how- ever, soon made the use general. Pli^iy the younger informs us, in his account of his uncle's journey to Vesuvius, that hig secretary sat by him ready to write down whatever occurred remarkable ; and that he had gloves on his hands, that the coldness of the weather might not impede his business. In the beginning of the ninth century, the use of gloves was become so universal, that even the church thought a reg- ulation in that part of dress necessary. In the reign of Louis le Debonair, the council of Aix ordered that the monks should only wear gloves made of sheep-skin. That time has made alterations in the form of this, as in all other apparel, appears from the old pictures and monu- ments. Gloves, beside their original design for a covering of the hand, have been employed on several great and solemn occa- sions ; as in the ceremony of investitures, in bestowing lands, or in conferring dignities. Giving possession by the delivery of a glove, prevailed in several parts of Christendom in later ages. In the year 1002, the bishops of Paderborn andMon- cerco were put into possession of their sees by receiving a glove. It was thought so essei}tial a part of the episcopal habit, that some abbots in France presuming to wear gloves, the council of Poitiers interposed in the affair, and forbad them the use, on the same principle as the ring and sandals ; these being peculiar to bishops, who frequently wore them richly adorned with jewels. THE HISTORY OF GLOVES. 321 F.'ivin observes, that the custom of blessing gloves at the coronation of the kings of France, which still subsists, is a remain of the eastern practice of investiture by a glove. A remarkable instance of this ceremony is recorded. The un- fortunate Conradin was deprived of his crown and his hfe by tlie usurper Mainfroy. When having ascended the scaf- fold, the injured prince lamenting his hard fate, asserted his right to the crown, and, as a token of investiture, threw his glove among the crowd, intreating it might be conveyed to some of his relations, who would revenge his death, — it was taken up by a knight, and brought to Peter, king of Aragon, who in vu-tue of this glove was afterwards crowned at Pa- lermo. As the dehvery of gloves was once a part of the ceremony used in giving possession, so the depriving a person of them was a mark of divesting him of his office, and of degradation. The Earl of Carlisle, in the reign of Edward the Second, impeached of holding a correspondence with the Scots, was condemned to die as a traitor. Walsino;ham, relatino- other circumstances of his degradation, says, " His spurs were cut off with a hatchet ; and his gloves and shoes were taken off," «&;c. Another use of gloves was in a duel ; he who threw one down was by this act understood to give defiance, and he who took it up to accept the challenge. The use of single combat, at first designed only for a trial of innocence, like the ordeals of fire and water, was in suc- ceeding ages practised for deciding rights and property. Challenging by the glove was continued down to the reign of Ehzabeth, as appears by an account given by Spelman of a duel appointed to be fought in Tothill P'ields, in the year 1571. The dispute was concerning some lands in the county of Kent. The plaintiffs appeared in court, and demanded single combat. One of them threw do^\Tl his glove, which the other, immediately taking up, carried off on the point of his sword, and the day of fighting was appointed ; this VOL. I. 21 322 THE fflSTORY OF GLOVES. affair was however adjusted by the queen's judicious inter- ference. The ceremony is still practised of challenging by a glove at the coronation of the kings of England, by his majesty's champion entering Westminster Hall completely armed and mounted. Challenging by the glove is still in use in some parts of the world. In Germany, on receiving an affront, to send a glove to the offending party is a challenge to a duel. The last use of gloves was for carrying the haiok. In for- mer times, princes and other great men took so much pleas- ure in carrying the hawk on their hand, that some of them have chosen to be represented in this attitude. There is a monument of Philip the First of France, on which he is rep- resented at length, on his tomb, holding a glove in his hand. Chambers says that, formerly, judges were forbid to wear gloves on the bench. No reason is assigned for this prohibi- tion. Our judges lie under no such restraint ; for both they and the rest of the court make no ditficulty of receiving gloves from the sheriffs, whenever the session or assize con- cludes without any one receiving sentence of death, which is called a maiden assize ; a custom of great antiquity. Our curious antiquary has preserved a singular anecdote concerning gloves. Chambers informs us, that it is not safe at present to enter the stables of princes without puUing off our gloves. He does not tell us in what the danger consists ; but it is an ancient established custom in Germany, that whoever enters the stables of a prince, or great man, with his gloves on his hands, is obliged to forfeit them, or redeeni them by a fee to the servants. The same custom is observed in some places at the death of the stag ; in which case if the gloves are not taken off, they are redeemed by money given to the huntsmen and keepers. The French king never failed of pulling off one of his gloves on tliat occasion. The reason of this ceremony seems to be lost. We jweet with the term glove-money in our old records ; by RELICS OF SAINTS. 323 which is meant, money given to servants tohuj fflores. This. probably, is the origin cf the phrase giving a pair of gloves, to signify making a present for some favour or service. Gough, in his " Sepulchral Monuments," informs us thai gloves formed no part of the female dress till after the Ref- ormation. I have seen some so late as in Anne's time richly worked and embroidered. There must exist in the Denny family some of the oldest gloves extant, as appeai-s by the following glove anecdote. At the sale of the Earl of Arran's goods, April Gth, 1759, the gloves given by Henry VIII. to Sir Anthony Denny were sold for '661. lis.; those given by James I. to his son Edward Denny for 22/. 4s. ; the mittens given by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Edward Denny's lady, 2bl. 4s. ; all which were bought for Sir Thomas Denny, of Ireland, who was descended in a direct hne from the great Sir Anthony Denny, one of the executors of the will of Henry VIII. RELICS OF SAINTS. "When rehcs of saints were first introduced, the rehque- mania was universal ; they bought and they sold, and, like other collectors, made no scruple to steal them. It is enter- taining to observe the singular ardour and grasping avidity of some, to enrich themselves with these religious morsels ; their little discernment, the curious impositions of the vender, and the good faith and sincerity of the purchaser. The pre- late of the place sometimes ordained a fast to implore God liiat they might not be cheated with the relics of saints, which he sometimes purchased for the holy benefit of the village or town. Guibert de Nogent wrote a treatise on the relics of saints; acknowledging that there were many false ones, as well as false legends, he reprobates the inventors of these lying mir- 324 RELICS OF SAINTS. acles. He wrote his treatise on the occasion of a tooth of our Lord's, bj which the monks of St. Medard do Soissona pretended to operate miracles. He asserts that this preten- sion is as chimerical as that of several persons, who believed they possessed the navel, and other parts less decent, of — the body of Christ ! A monk of Bergsvinck has given a history of the transla- tion of St. Lewin, a virgin and a martyr : her relics were brought from England to Bergs. He collected with relig- ious care the facts from his brethren, especially from the con- ductor of these relics from England. After the history of the translation, and a panegyric of the saint, he relates the miracles performed in Flanders since the arrival of her relics. The prevailing passion of the times to possess fragments of saints is well marked, when the author particularizes with a certain complacency all the knavish modes they used to carry off those in question. None then objected to this sort of robbery ; because the gratification of the reigning passion had made it worth while to supply the demand. A monk of Cluny has given a history of the translation of the body of St. Indalece, one of the earliest Spanish bishops, written by order of the abbot of St. Juan de la Penna. He protests he advances nothing but facts : having himself seen, or learnt from other witnesses, all he relates. It was not difficult for him to be well informed, since it was to the mon- astery of St. Juan de la Penna that the holy relics were transported, and those who brought them were two monks of that house. He has authenticated his minute detail of cir- cumstances by giving the names of persons and places. His account was wiitten for the great festival immediately insti- tuted in honour of this translation. He informs us of the miraculous manner by which they were so fortunate as to discover the body of this bishop, and the different plans they concerted to carry it off. He gives the itinerary of the two monks who accompanied the holy remains. They were not a Uttle cheered in their long journey by visions and miracles. RKLICS OF SAINTS. ^25 Another has written a history of what he calls the transla tion of the relics of St. Majean to the monastery of Ville- magne. Translation is in fact only a softened expression for the robbery of the rehcs of the saint committed by two monks, who carried them off secretly to enrich their monas- tery ; and they did not hesitate at any artifice or lie to com- plete their design. They thought every thing was permitted to acquire these fragments of mortality, which had now be- come a branch of commerce. They even regarded their possessors with an hostile eye. Such was the rcl-gious opin- ion from the ninth to the twelfth century. Our Canute com- missioned his agent at Rome to purchase aS'^ Avgustin's arm for one hundred talents of silver and one of gold ; a much greater sum, observes Granger, than the finest statue of anti- quity would have then sold for. Another monk describes a strange act of devotion, attested by several contemporary writers. When the saints did not readily comply with the prayers of their votaries, they flogged their relics with rods, in a spirit of impatience which they conceived was necessary to make them bend into com- pUance. Theofroy, abbot of Eptemac, to raise our admiration, re- lates the daily miracles performed by the relics of saints, their ashes, their clothes, or other mortal spoils, and even by the instruments of their martyrdom. He inveighs against that luxury of ornaments which was indulged under a relig- ious pretext : " It is not to be supposed that the saints are desirous of such a profusion of gold and silver. They care not that we should raise to them such magnificent churches, to exhibit that ingenious order of pillars which shine with gold, nor those rich ceilings, nor those altars sparkling with jewels. They desire not the purple parchment of price for their writings, the liquid gold to embellish the letters, nor the precious stones to decorate their covers, while you have such little care for the ministers of the altar." The pious writer has not forgotten himself \n this copartnership with ihe saints. 326 RELICS OF SAINTS. The Roman church not being able to deny, says Bayle, that there have been false relics, which have operated mir- acles, they reply that the good intentions of those believers who have recourse to them obtained from God this reward for their good faith ! In the same spirit, when it was shown that two or three bodies of the same saint are said to exist in different places, and that therefore they all could not be authentic, it was answered that they were all genuine ; for God had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them for the comfort of the faithful ! A curious specimen of the in- tolerance of good sense. When the Reformation was spread in Lithuania, Prince Radzivil was so affected by it, that he went in person to pay the pope all possible honours. His holiness on this occasion presented him with a precious box of relics. The prince having returned home, some monks entreated permission to try the effects of these relics on a demoniac, who had hitherto resisted every kind of exorcism. They were brought into the church with solemn pomp, and deposited on the altar, accompanied by an innumerable crowd. After the usual conjurations, which were unsuccessful, they applied the relics. The demoniac instantly recovered. The people called out '' a miracle ! " and the prince, lifting his hands and eyes to heaven, felt his faith confirmed. In this transport of pious joy, he observed that a young gentleman, who was keeper of this treasure of relics, smiled, and by his motions ridiculed the miracle. The prince indignantly took our young keeper of the relics to task ; who, on promise of pardon, gave the following sec7-et intelligence concerning them. In travelling from Rome he had lost the box of relics ; and not daring to mention it, he had procured a similar one, which he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats, and other trifles simi- lar to what were lost. He hoped he might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of rubbish was idolized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of expelling demons. It wa.s by the assistance of this box that the prince KELICS OF SAINTS. 327 discovered the gross impositions of the monks and the de- moniacs, and Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lu- theran. The elector Frederic, sumamed the Wise, was an inde- fatigable collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him solicited payment for several parcels lie had purchased for our wise elector ; but the times had changed ! lie was advised to give over this business ; the relics for which he desired payment they were willing to retm-n ; that the price had fallen considerably since the reformation of Luther ; and that they would find a better market in Italy than in Germany ! Our Henry III., who was deeply tainted with the super- stition of the age, summoned all the great in the kingdom to meet in London. This summons excited the most general curiosity, and multitudes appeared. The king then ac- quainted them that the great master of the Knights Tern plars had sent him a phial containing a small portion of the precious blood of Christ which he had shed upon the cross ; and attested to be genuine by the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem and others ! He commanded a procession the following day ; and the historian adds, that though the road between St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey was very deep and miry, the king kept his eyes constantly fixed on the phial. Two monks received it, and deposited the phial in the abbey, " which made all England shine with glory, dedi- cating it to God and St. Edward." Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII., notices \\\e great fall of the price of relics at the dissolution of the monasteries. " The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell ; insomuch, as I find by our records, that a piece of St. Andrew'' s finger (covered only with an ounce of silver), being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left un- redeemed at the dissolution of the house ; the king's com- missioners, who upon surrender of any foundation undertook to pay the debts, refusing to return the price again." That 328 PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS. is, they did not choose to repay the forti/ pounds to receive a piece of the Jinger of St. Andrew. About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-sea bubble ; for shortly after the artifice of the Rood of Grace, at Boxley in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace ; and a far-famed relic at Hales, in Gloucester- shire, of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was shown in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin ; and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrims at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the Mood of a duck, renewed every week, and put in a phial ; one side was opaque, and the other transparent ; the monk turned either side to the pilgrim, as he thought proper. The success of the pil- grim depended on the oblations he made ; those who were scanty in their otfermgs were the longest to get a sight of the blood : when a man was iu despau-, he usually became gen- erous ! PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS. No. 379 of the Spectator relates an anecdote of a person who had opened the sepulchre of the famous Rosicrucius. He discovered a lamp burning, which a statue of clock-work struck into pieces. Hence the disciples of this visionary said that he made use of this method to show " that he had re- invented the ever-burnmg lamps of the ancients." Many writers have made mention of these wonderful lamps. It has happened frequently that inquisitive men examin- ing with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which had' been just opened, the fat and gross vapours kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out " a miracle ! " This sudden in- flaramation, although very natural, has given room to believe NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, ETC. JJ29 that these flames proceeded from perpetual lamps, wliich some have thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they otiid, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were penetrated by the exterior air. The accounts of the perpetual lamps which ancient writers give have occasioned several ingenious men to search aftt^r their composition. Licetus, who possessed more erudition than love of truth, has given two receipts for making this eternal fire by a preparation of certain minerals. More credible writers maintain that it is possible to make lamps perpetually burning, and an oil at once inflammable and in- consumable ; but Boyle, assisted by several experiments made on the air-pump, found that these hghts, which have been viewed in opening tombs, proceeded from the collision of fresh air. This reasonable observation conciliates all, and does not compel us to deny the accounts. The story of the lamp of Rosicrucius, even if it ever had the slightest foundation, only owes its origin to the spirit of party, which at the time would have persuaded the world that Rosicrucius had at least discovered something. It was reserved for modem discoveries in chemistry to prove that air was not only necessary for a medium to the existence of the flame, which indeed the air-pump had already sho^vn ; but also as a constituent part of the inflammation, and without which a body, otherwise very inflammable in all its parts, cannot, however, bum but in its superficies, which alone is in contact with the ambient air. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS RESEMBLING ARTIFICIAL COMPOSITIONS. Some stones are preserved by the curious, for representing distinctly figures traced by nature alone, and witliout the aid of art. 330 NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, ETC. Pliny mentions an agate, in which appeared, formed by the hand of nature, Apollo amidst the Nine Muses holding a harp. At Venice another may be seen, in which is naturally formed the perfect figure of a man. At Pisa, in the church of St. John, there is a similar natural production, which rep- resents an old hermit in a desert, seated by the side of a stream, and who holds in his hands a small bell, as St. Anthony is commonly painted. In the temple of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, there was formerly on a white mai'ble the image of St. John the Baptist covered with the skin of a camel ; with this only imperfection, that natui-e had given but one leg. At Ravenna, in the church of St. Vital, a cordelier is seen on a dusky stone. They found in Italy a marble, in which a crucifix was so elaborately finished, that there appeared the nails, the drops of blood, and the wounds, as perfectly as the most excellent painter could have per- formed. At Sneilberg, in Germany, they found in a mine a certain rough metal, on which was seen the figure of a man, who carried a child on his back. In Provence they found in a mine a quantity of natural figures of birds, trees, rats, and serpents ; and in some places of the western parts of Tartary, are seen on divers rocks the figures of camels, horses, and sheep. PanciroUus, in his Lost Antiquities, attests, that in a church at Rome, a marble perfectly represented a priest celebrating mass, and raising the host. Paul III. conceiving that art had been used, scraped the marble to discover whether any painting had been employed : but nothing of the kind was discovered. " I have seen," writes a friend, " many of these curiosities. They are always helped out by art. In ray father's house was a gray marble chimney-piece, which abounded in portraits, landscapes, &c., the greatest part of which was made by myself." I have myself seen a large collection, many certainly untouched by art. One stone appears like a perfect cameo of a Minerva's head ; another shows an old man's head, beautiful as if the hand of Raffaelle had designed it. Both these stones are transparent. Some exhibit portraits. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, ETC. 331 There is preserved in the British Museum a black stone, on which nature has sketched a resemblance of the portrait of Chaucer. Stones of this kind possessing a sufficient degree of resemblance, are rare ; but art appears not to have been used. Even in plants, we find this sort of resemblance. There is a species of the orchis, where Nature has formed a bee, apparently feeding in the breast of the flower, Avith so much exactness, that it is impossible at a very small distance to distinguish the imposition. Hence the plant derives its name, and is called the Bee-Flower. Langhorne elegantly notices its appearance : — " See on that flow'ret's velvet breast, How close the busy v;igrant lies ! His thiu-WTOught plume, his downy breast, The ambrosial gold that swells his thighs. " Perhaps his fragi-ant load may biud His limbs; — we'll set the captive free — I sought the LIVING bee to find. And found the picture of a bee." The late INIr. Jackson, of Exeter, wrote to me on this sub- ject : " This orchis is common near our sea-coasts ; but in- stead of being exactly like a bee, it is not like it at all. It has a general resemblance to a jly, and by the help of im- agination may be supposed to be a fly pitched upon the flower. The mandrake very frequently has a forked root, which may be fancied to resemble thighs and legs. I have seen it helped out with nails on the toes." An ingenious botanist, after reading this article, was so kind as to send me specimens of the^^y orchis, ophrys musci- fera, and of the bee orchis, ophrys apifera. Their resem- blance to these insects when in full flower is the most perfect conceivable : they are distinct plants. The poetical eye of Langhorne was equally correct and fanciful ; and that too of Jackson, who differed so positively. Many controversies have been carried on, from a want of a httle more knowl- edge ; hke that of the bee orchis and the fly orchis, both parties prove to be right. 332 THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA. Another curious specimen of the playful operations of nature is the mandrake ; a plant indeed, when it is bare of leaves, perfectly resembling that of the human form. The ginseng-tree is noticed for the same appearance. This object the same poet has noticed : — " Mark how that rooted mandrake wears His human feet, his human hands ; Oft, as his shapely form he rears, Aghast the frighted ploughman stands." He closes tliis beautiful fable with the following stanza, not inapposite to the curious subject of this article : — "Helvetia's rocks, Sabrina's waves, Still many a shining pebble bear: Where nature's studious hand engraves The PEKFECT FORM, and leaves it there." THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA. HuET has given a charming description of a present made by a lover to his mistress ; a gift which romance has seldom equalled for its gallantry, ingenuity, and novelty. It was called the garland of Julia. To understand the nature of this gift, it will be necessary to give the history of the par- ties. The beautiful Julia d'Angennes was in the flower of her youth and fame, when the celebrated Gustavus, king of Swe- den, was making war in Germany with the most splendid success. Julia expressed her warm admiration of this hero. She had his portrait placed on her toilet, and took pleasure in declaring that she would have no other lover than Gusta- vus. The Duke de Montausier was, however, her avowed and ardent admirer. A short time after the death of Gusta- vus, he sent her, as a new-year's gift, the poetical, garland of which the following is a description. The most beautiful flowers were painted in miniature by THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA. 333 an eminent artist, one Eobert, on pieces of vellum, all of equal dimensions. Under every flower a space was left open for a madrigal on the subject of the flower there painted. The duke sohcited the wits of the time to assist in the com- position of these httle poems, reserving a considerable num- ber for the effusions of his own amorous muse. Under every flower he had its madrigal written by N. du Jarry, celebrated for his beautiful caligraphy. A decorated frontispiece oflered a splendid garland composed of all these twenty-nine flowei-s ; and on turning the page a cupid is painted to the life. These were magnificently bound, and enclosed in a bag of rich Spanish leatiier. When Julia awoke on new-year's day, she found tills lover's gift lying on her toilet ; it was one quite to her taste, and successful to the donor's hopes. Of this Poetical Garland, thus formed by the hands of Wit and Love, Huet says, " As I had long heard of it, I fre- quently expressed a wish to see it : at length the Duchess of Usez gratified me with the sight. She locked me in her cab- inet one afternoon with this garland : she then went to the queen, and at the close of the evening liberated me. I never passed a more agreeable afternoon." One of the prettiest inscriptions of these flowers, is the following, composed for THE VIOLET. " ilodeste en ma couleur, modeste en mon s^jour, Franche d' ambition, je me cache sous I'herbe; Mais, si sur votre front je puis me voir un jour, La plus humble des fleurs sera la plus superbe." " Modest my colour, modest is my place, Pleased in the grass my lowly form to hide ; But mid your tresses might I wind with grace, The humblest flower would feel the loftiest pride." The following is some additional information respecting « the Poetical Garland of Juha." At the sale of tlie library of the Duke de la Valbere, in 1784, among its numerous literarj' curiosities this gai-land 334 TRAGIC ACTORS. appeared. It was actually sold for the extravajxant sum of 14,510 livres ! though in 1770, at Gaignat's sale, it only cost 780 livres. It is described to be " a manuscript on vellum, composed of twenty-nine flowers painted by one Robeit, under which are inserted madrigals by various authors." But the Abbe Rive, the superintendent of the Valliere li- brary, published in 1779 an inflammatory notice of this gar- land ; and as he and the duke had the art of appreciating, and it has been said making spurious literary curiosities, this notice was no doubt the occasion of the maniacal price. In the great French Revolution,' this literary curiosity found its passage into this country. A bookseller offered it for sale at the enormous price of £500 sterling ! No curious collector has been discovered to have purchased this unique ; which is most remarkable for the extreme folly of the pur- chaser who gave the 14,510 livres for poetry and pamting not always exquisite. The history of the Garland of Julia is a child's lesson for certain rash and inexperienced collect- ors, who may here " Learn to do well by others' harm." TRAGIC ACTORS. MoNTFLEDRY, a French player, was one of the greatest actors of his time for characters highly tragic. He died of the violent eflPorts he made in representing Orestes in the Andromache of Racine. The author of the " Parnasse Re- forme " makes him thus express himself in the shades. There is something extremely droll in his lamentations, with a severe raillery on the inconveniences to which tragic actors are liable. " Ah ! how sincerely do I wish that tragedies had never been invented ! I might then have been yet in a state capa- ble of appearing on the stage ; and if I should not have TRAGIC ACTORS. 335 attained the glory of sustaining sublime characters, I should at least have trifled agreeably, and have worked off my spleen in laughing ! I have wasted my lungs in tho violent emotions of jealousy, love, and ambition. A thousand times have I been obliged to force myself to represent more pas- sions than Le Brun ever painted or conceived. I saw myself frequently obliged to dart terrible glances ; to roll my eyes furiously in ray head, like a man insane ; to frighten others by extravagant grimaces ; to imprint on my countenance tho redness of indignation and hatred ; to make the paleness of fear and surprise succeed each other by turns ; to express the transports of rage and despair ; to cry out Uke a demo- niac ; and consequently to strain all the parts of my body to render my gestures fitter to accompany these different im- pressions. The man then who would know of what I died, let him not ask if it were of the fever, the dropsy, or the gout : but let him know that it was of the Andromache / " The Jesuit Rapin infoi-ms us, that when Mondory acted Herod in the Mariamne of Tristan, the spectators quitted the theatre mournful and thouglitful ; so tenderly were they penetrated with the sorrows of the unfortunate heroine. In this melancholy pleasure, he says, we have a rude picture of the strong impressions which were made by the Grecian tragedians. Mondory indeed felt so powerfully the character he assumed, that it cost him his life. Some readers may recollect the death of Bond, who felt so exquisitely the character of Lusignan in Zara, which he per- sonated when an old man, that Zara, when she addressed him, found him dead in his chair ! The assumption of a variety of characters, by a person of irritable and delicate nerves, has oflen a tragical effect on the mental faculties. We might draw up a list of actors, who have fallen martyrs to their tragic characters. Several have died on the stage, and, like Palmer, usually in the midst of some agitated appeal to the feelings. Baron, who was the French Garrick, had a most elevated y36 TRAGIC ACTORS. notion of his profession ; he used to say, that tragic actors should be nursed on the lap of queens ! Nor was his vanity inferior to his enthusiasm for his profession ; for, according to liim, the world might see once in a century a Giesar, but that it required a thousand years to produce a Baron ! A variety of anecdotes testify the admirable talents he displayed. Whenever he meant to compliment the talents or merit of distinguished characters, he always deUvered in a pointed manner the striking passages of the play, fixing his eye on them. An observation of his respecting actors, is not less applicable to poets and to painters. " Rules," said this subhme actor, " may teach us not to raise the arms above the head ; but if passion carries them, it will be weU done ; PASSION KNOWS MORE THAN ART." Betterton, although his countenance was ruddy and san- guine, when he performed Hamlet, tlu'ough the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror at the presence of his father's spectre, instantly turned as white as his neck- cloth, while his whole body seemed to be affected with a strong tremor : had his father's apparition actually risen before liim, he could not have been seized with more real agonies. Tliis struck the spectators so forcibly that they felt a shuddering in their veins, and participated in the astonisn- ment and the horror so apparent in the actor. Davies in his Dramatic Miscellanies records this fact ; and in the Richard- soniana, we find that the first time Booth attempted the ghost when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck him with such horror that he became disconcerted to such a df'gree, that he could not speak his part. Hei'e seems no want of evidence of the force of the ideal presence in this marvellous acting : these facts might deserve a philosophical investigation. Le Kain, the French actor, who retired from the Parisian stage, like our Garrick, covered with glory and gold, was one day congratulated by a company on the retirement which lie was preparing to enjoy. "As to glory," modestly replied JOCULAR PREACHERS. 337 this actor, " I do not flatter myself to have acquired much. This kind of reward is always disputed by many, and you yourselves would not allow it, were I to assume it. As to the money, I have not so much reason to be satisfied ; at the Italian theatre, their share is far more considerable than mine ; an actor there may get twenty to twenty-five thousand livres, and my share amounts at the most to ten or twelve thousand." " How ! the devil ! " exclaimed a rude chevalier of the order of St. Louis, who was present, " How ! the devil ! a vile stroller is not content with twelve thousand livres an- nually, and I, who am in the king's service, who sleep upon a cannon and lavish my blood for my country, I must con- sider myself as fortunate in having obtained a pension of one thousand livres." " And do you account as nothing, sir, the liberty of addressing me thus ? " replied Le Kain, with all the subUmity and conciseness of an irritated Orosmane. The memoirs of Mademoiselle Clairon display her exalted feeling of the character of a sublime actress ; she was of opinion, that in common life the truly sublime actor should be a hero, or heroine off the stage. " If I am only a vulgar and ordinary woman during twenty hours of the day, what- ever effort I may make, I shall only be an ordinary and vulgar woman in Agrippina or Semiramis, during the re- maining four." In society she was nicknamed the Queen of Carthage, from her admirable personification of Dido in a tragedy of that name. JOCULAR PREACHERS. These preachers, whose works are excessively rare, form a race unknown to the general reader. I shall sketch the characters of these pious buffoons, before I introduce them to his acquaintance. They, as it has been said of Sterne, seemed to have wished, every now and then, to have thrown their wigs into the faces of their auditors. VOL. I. 22 338 JOCULAR PREACHERS. These preachers flourished in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries ; we are therefore to ascribe their extrav- ajjant mixture of grave admonition with facetious illustration, comic tales which have been occasionally adopted by the most licentious writers, and minute and lively descriptions, to the great simplicity of the times, when the grossest indecency was never concealed under a gentle periphrasis, but every thing was called by its name. All this was enforced by the most daring personalities, and seasoned by those temporary allusions which neither spared nor feared even the throne. These ancient sermons therefore are singularly precious, to those whose inquisitive pleasures are gratified by tracing the manners of former ages. When Henry Stephens, in his apology for Herodotus, describes the irregularities of the age, and the minuti^ of national manners, he effects this chiefly by extracts from these sermons. Their wit is not always the brightest, nor their satire the most poignant ; but there is always that prevailing naivete of the age running through their rude eloquence, which interests the reflecting mind. In a word, these sermons were addressed to the multitude ; and therefore they show good sense and absurdity, fancy and puerility ; satire and insipidity ; extravagance and truth. Oliver Maillard, a famous cordelier, died in 1502, This preacher having pointed some keen traits in his sermons at Louis XL, the irritated monarch had our cordelier informed that he would throw him into the river. He replied un- daunted, and not forgetting his satire : " The king may do as he chooses ; but tell him that I shall sooner get to paradise by water, than he will arrive by all his post-horses." He alluded to travelling by post, which this monarch had lately introduced into France. This bold answer, it is said, intimi- dated Louis ; it is certain that Maillard continued as cour- ageous and satirical as ever in his pulpit. The following extracts are descriptive of the manners of the times. In attacking rapine and robbery, under the first head he JOCULAR PREACHERS. 339 describes a kind of usury, which was practised in the days of Ben Jonson, and I am told in the present, as well as in the times of ]\Iaillard. " This," says he, " is called a palliated usury. It is thus. When a person is in want of money, he goes to a treasurer, (a kind of banker or merchant,) on whom he has an order for 1000 crowns ; the treasurer tells him that he will pay him in a fortnight's time, wlien he is to re- ceive the money. The poor man cannot wait. Our good treasurer tells him, I will give you half in money and half in goods. So he passes his goods that are worth 100 crowns for 200." He then touches on the bribes which these treas- urei's and clerks in office took, excusing themselves by alleging the Uttle pay they otherwise received. "AU these practices be sent to the devils ! " cries Maillard, in thus addressing himself to the ladies : " it is for you all this damnation en- sues. Yes ! yes ! you must have rich satins, and girdles of gold out of this accursed money. When any one has any thing to receive from the husband, he must make a present to the wife of some fine gown, or girdle, or ring. If you ladies and gentlemen who are battening on your pleasures, and wear scarlet clothes, I believe if you were closely put in a good press, we should see the blood of the poor gush out, with which your scarlet is dyed." Maillard notices the folloAving curious particulars of the mode of cheating in trade in his times. He is violent against the apothecaries for their cheats. " They mix ginger with cinnamon, which they sell for real spices : they put their bags of ginger, pepper, saffron, cinna- mon, and other di-ugs in damp cellars, that they may weigh heavier ; they mix oil with saffron, to give it a color, and to make it weightier." He does not forget those tradesmen who put water in their wool, and moisten their cloth that it may stretch ; tavern-keepers, who sophisticate and mingle wines ; the butchers, who blow up their meat, and who mix hog's lard with the fat of their meat. He terribly declaims against *bose who buy with a great allowance of measure and weight, 340 JOCULAR PREACHERS. and then sell with a small measure and weight ; and cursea those who, when they weigh, press the scales down with their fino^er. But it is time to conclude with Master OUver ! His catalogue is, however, by no means exhausted ; and it may not be amiss to observe, that the present age has re- tained every one of the sins. The following extracts are from Menot's sermons, which are wi'itten, like JMaillard's, in a barbarous Latin, mixed with old French. Michael Menot died in 1518. I think he has more wit than Maillard, and occasionally displays a brilliant imagination ; with the same singular mixture of grave declamation and farcical absurdities. He is called in the title-page the golden tongued. It runs thus, Predicatoris qui lingua aurea, sua tempestate nuncupatus est, Sermones quadragesimales, ab ipso olim Turonis declamati. Paris, 1525, 8vo. When he compares the church with a vine, he says, " There were once some Britons and Enghslmien who would have carried away aU France into their country, because they found our wine better than their beer ; but as they well knew that they could not always remain in France, nor carry away France into their country, they would at least carry with them several stocks of vines ; they planted some in England ; but these stocks soon degenerated, because the soil was not adapted to them." Notwithstanding what Menot said in 1500, and that we have tried so often, we have often flattered ourselves that if we plant vineyards we may have English wine. The following beautiful figure describes those who live neglectful of their aged pai'ents, who had cherished them into prosperity. " See the trees flourish and recover their leaves ; it is their root that has produced all ; but when the branches are loaded \vith flowers and with fruits, they yield nothing to the root. This is an image of those children who prefer their own amusements, and to game away their for- tunes, than to give to their old parents that which they want." JOCULAR PREACHERS. 341 He acquaints us with the following circumstances of the immorality of that age : " Who has not got a mistress besides his wife ? The poor wife eats the fruits of bitterness, and even makes the bed for the mistress. Oaths were not un- fashionable in his day. " Since the world has been world, this crime was never greater. There were once pillories for these swearers ; but now this crime is so common, that the child of five years can swear ; and even the old dotard of eighty, who has only two teeth remainmg, can fling out an oath." On the power of the fair sex of his day, he observes, " A father says, my son studies ; he must have a bishopric, or an abbey of 500 Uvres. Then he will have dogs, horses, and mistresses, like others. Another says, I will have my son placed at court, and have many honourable dignities. To succeed well, both employ the mediation of women ; un- happily the church and the law are entu*ely at their disposal. We have artful Dalilahs who shear us close. For twelve crowns and an ell of velvet given to a woman, you gain the worst law-suit, and the best living." In his last sermon, Menot recapitulates the various topics he had touched on during Lent. This extract presents a curious picture, and a just notion of the versatile talents of these preachers. " I have told ecclesiastics how they should conduct them- selves ; not that they are ignorant of their duties ; but I must ever repeat to girls, not to suffer themselves to be duped by them. I have told these ecclesiastics that they should imitate the lark ; if she has a grain she does not remain idle, but feels her pleasure in singing, and in singing always is ascend- ing towards heaven. So they should not amass ; but elevate the hearts of all to God ; and not do as the frogs who are crying out day and night, and think they have a fine throat, but always remain fixed in the mud. " I have told the men of the law that they should have the qualities of the eagle. The first is, that this bird when it 342 JOCULAR PREACHERS, flies fixes its eye on the sun ; so all judges, counsellors, and attorneys, in judging, writing, and signing, should always have God before their eyes. And secondly, this bird is never greedy ; it willingly shares its prey with others ; so all lawyers, who are rich in crowns after having had their bills paid, should distribute some to the poor, particularly when they are conscious that their money arises from their prey. " I have spoken of the marriage state, but all that I have said has been disregarded. See those wretches who break the hymeneal chains, and abandon their wives ! they pass their holidays out of their parishes, because if they remained at home they must have joined their wives at church ; they liked their prostitutes better ; and it will be so every day in the year ! I would as well dine with a Jew or a heretic, as with them. What an infected place is this! Mistress Lubricity has taken possession of the whole city ; look m every corner, and you'll be convinced. " For you married women ! If you have heard the night- ingale's song, you must know that she sings during three months, and that she is silent when she has young ones. So there is a time in which you may sing and take your pleas- ures in the marriage state, and another to watch your children. Don't damn yourselves for them ; and remember it would be better to see them drowned than damned. " As to widows, I observe, that the turtle withdraws and sighs in the woods, Avhenever she has lost her companion ; so must they retire into the wood of the cross, and having lost their temporal husband, take no other but Jesus Christ. " And, to close all, I have told girls that they must fly from the company of men, and not permit them to embrace, nor even touch them. Look on the rose ; it has a delightful odour ; it embalms the place in which it is placed ; but if you grasp it underneath, it will prick you till the blood issues. The beauty of the rose is the beauty of the girl. The beauty and perfume of the first invite to smell and to handle it, but when it is touched underneath it pricks sharply ; the beauty JOCULAR PREACHERS. 343 of a girl likewise invites the hand ; but you, my young ladies, you must never suffer this, for I tell you that every man who does this designs to make you harlots." These ample extracts may convey the same pleasure to the reader which I have received by collecting them from their scarce originals, little known even to the curious. Menot, it cannot be denied, displays a poetic imagination, and a fertility of conception which distinguishes him among liis rivals. The same taste and popular manner came into our country, and were suited to the simplicity of the age. In 1527, our Bishop Latimer preached a sermon, in which he expresses himself thus : — " Now ye have heard what is meant by this first card, and how ye ought to play. I pur- pose again to deal unto you another card of the same suit ; for they be so nigh affinity, that one cannot be well played without the other." It is curious to observe about a century afterwards, as Fuller informs us, that when a country clergy- man imitated these famihar allusions, the taste of the con- gregation had so changed that he was interrupted by peals of laughter ! Even in more modem times have Menot and Maillard found an imitator in httle Father Andre, as well as others. His character has been variously drawn. lie is by some represented as a kind of buffoon in the pulpit ; but others more judiciously observe, that he only indulged his natural genius, and uttered humorous and Uvely things, as the good father observes himself, to keep the attention of his audience awake. He was not always laughing. " He told many a bold truth," says the author of Guerre des Auteurs anciens et modernes, " that sent bishops to their dioceses, and made many a coquette blush. He possessed the art of biting when he smiled ; and more ably combated vice by Hs ingenious satire than by those vague apostrophes which no one takes to himself. While others were straining their minds to catch at sublime thoughts which no one understood, he lowered his talents to the most humble situations, and to the minutest 344 JOCULAR PREACHERS. things. From tliem he drew his examples and his cimipari- eons ; and the one and the other never failed of success." Marville says, that " His expressions were full of shrewd simplicity. He made very free use of the most popular proverbs. His comparisons and figures were always bor- rowed from the most famiUar and lowest things." To ridi- cule eifectually the reigning vices, he would prefer quirks or puns to sublime thoughts ; and he was little soUcitous of his choice of expression, so the things came home. Gozzi, in Italy, had the same power in drawing unexpected inferences from vulgar and famihar occurrences. It was by this art Whitfield obtained so many followers. In Piozzi's British Synonymes, vol. ii. p. 205, we have an instance of Gozzi's manner. In the time of Charles II., it became fashionable to introduce humour into sermons. Sterne seems to have revived it in his : South's sparkle perpetually with wit and pun. Far different, however, are the characters of the sublime preachers, of whom the French have preserved the following descriptions. We have not any more Bourdaloue, La Rue, and Massil- lon ; but the idea which still exists of their manner of address- ing their auditors may serve instead of lessons. Each had his own peculiar mode, always adapted to place, time, cir- cumstance ; to their auditors, their style, and their subject. Bourdaloue, with a collected air, had little action ; with eyes generally half closed, he penetrated the hearts of the people by the sound of a voice uniform and solemn. The tone with which a sacred orator pronounced the words, 2\t est ille vir! "Thou art the man!" in suddenly addressing them to one of the kings of France, struck more forcibly than their application. Madame de Sevigne describes our preacher, by saying, " Father Bourdaloue thunders at Notre Dame." La Kue appeared with the air of a prophet. His manner was ii-resistible, full of fire, intelligence, and force. He had strokes perfectly original. Several old men, his contempo- MASTERLY IMITATORS. 345 raries, still shuddered at the recollection of the expression which he employed in an apostrophe to the God of vengeance, Ecaginare gladiu7ii tuum ! The person of MassUlon affected his admirers. He was seen in the pulpit with that air of simplicity, that modest de- meanour, those eyes humbly declining, those unstudied ges- tures, that passionate tone, that mild countenance of a man penetrated with his subject, conveying to the mind the most luminous ideas, and to the heart the most tender emotions. Baron, the tragedian, coming out from one of liis sermons, truth forced from his lips a confession humiliating to his pro- fession: "My friend," said he to one of his companions, " this is an orator I and we ai'e only actors" MASTERLY BIITATORS. There have been found occasionally some artists who could so perfectly imitate the spirit, the taste, the character, and the peculiarities of great masters, that they have not un- frequently deceived the most skilful connoisseurs. Michael Angelo sculptured a sleeping Cupid, of which having broken off an anil, he buried the statue in a place where Jie knew it would soon be found. The critics were never tired of ad- miring it, as one of the most precious relics of antiquity. It was sold to the Cardinal of St. George, to whom ]\Iiohael Angelo discovered the whole mystery, by joining to the Cupid the arm which he had reserved. An anecdote of Peter Minrnard is more singular. Tliis great artist painted a Magdalen, on a canvas fabricated at Rome. A broker, m concert with Mignard, went to the Chevalier de Clairville, and told him as a secret that he was to receive from Italy a Magdalen of Guido, and his master- piece. The chevalier caught the bait, begged the preference, and purchased the picture at a very high price. 346 MASTERLY IMITATORS, He was informed that he had been imposed ujoii, and that the Magdalen was painted by Mignard. Mignard himself caused the alarm to be given, but the amateur would not believe it ; all the connoisseurs agreed it was a Guido, and the famous Le Brun corroborated this opinion. The chevalier came to Mignard : — " Some persons assure me that my Magdalen is your work ! " — " Mine ! they do me great honour. I am sure that Le Brun is not of this opinion." ■ — " Le Brun swears it can be no other than a Guido. You shall dine with me, and meet several of the first comiois- seurs." On the day of meeting, the picture was again more closely inspected. Mignard hinted his doubts whether the piece was the work of that great master ; he insinuated that it was pos- sible to be deceived ; and added, that if it waa Guide's, he did not think it m his best manner. " It is a Guido, sir, and in his very best manner," replied Le Brun, with warmth ; and all the critics were unanimous Mignard then spoke in a fiiTn tone of voice : "And I, gentlemen, will wager thi-ee hundred louis that it is not a Guido." The dispute now be came violent : Le Brun was desirous of accepting the wager. In a word, the affair became such that it could add nothing more to the glory of Mignard. " No, sir," replied the latter, " I am too honest to bet when I am certain to win. Monsieur le ChevaUer, this piece cost you two thousand crowns : the money must be returned, — the painting is mine" Le Brun would not believe it. " The proof," Mignard continued, " is easy. On this canvas, which is a Roman one, was the por- trait of a cardinal ; I will show you his cap." — The chevalier did not knoAv which of the rival artists to credit. The propo- sition alarmed him. " He who painted the picture shall repair it," said Mignard. He took a pencil dipped in oil, and rubbing the hair of the Magdalen, discovered the cap of the cardinal. The honour of the ingenious painter could no longer be disputed ; Le Brun, vexed, sarcastically exclaimed, •'Always paint Guido, but never Mignard." MASTKRLY IMITATORS. 347 There is a collection of engravings by that ingenious artist Bernard Picart, which has been published under the title of The Innocent Impostors. Picart had long been vexed at the taste of his day, which ran wholly in favour of antiquity, and no one would look at, much less admire, a modern master. lie published a pretended collection, or a set of prints, from the designs of the great painters ; in which he imitated the etchings and engravings of the various masters, and much were these prints admii'ed as the works of Guido, Rembrandt, and others. Having had his joke, they were published under the title of Imposteurs Linocens. The connoisseurs, how- ever, are strangely divided in their opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these " Innocent Impostors " among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excel- lences the artists whom he copied ; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never liave deceived an experienced judge, and repro- bates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable brotherhood of the cognoscenti ! The same thing was, however, done by Goltzius, who being disgusted at the preference given to the works of Albert Diirer, Lucas of Leyden, and others of that school, and hav- ing attemjjted to introduce a better taste, which was not im- mediately relished, he published what were afterwards called his master-pieces. These are six prints in the style of these masters, merely to prove that Goltzius could imitate their works, if he thought proper. One of these, the Circumcision, he had printed on soiled pa[)er ; and to give it the brown tint of antiquity had carefully smoked it, by which means it was sold as a curious performance, and deceived some of the most capital connoisseurs, of the day, one of whom bought it as one of the finest engravings of Albert Durer: even Strutt acknowledges the merit of Goltzius's master-pieces ! To these instances of artists I will add others of celebrated authors. Muretus rendered Joseph Scaliger, a great stickler 348 MASTERLY IMITATORS. for the ancients, highly ridiculous by an artifice which he practised. He sent some verses which he pretended were copied fi'om an old manuscript. The verses were excellent, and Scahger was credulous. After having read them, he exclaimed they were admirable, and affirmed that they were written by an old comic poet, Trabeus. He quoted them, in his commentary on Varro De Re Rustica, as one of the most precious fragments of antiquity. It was then, when he had fixed his foot firmly in the trap, that Muretus informed the world of the little dependence to be placed on the critical sagacity of one so prejudiced in fovour of the ancients, and who considered his judgment as infallible. The Abbe Regnier Desmarais, having written an ode, or, as the Italians call it, canzone, sent it to the Abbe Strozzi at Florence, who used it to impose on three or four academicians of Delia Crusca. He gave out that Leo Allatius, librarian of the Vatican, in examining carefully the MSS. of Petrarch preserved there, had found two pages slightly glued, which having separated, he had discovered this ode. The fact was not at first easily credited ; but afterwards the similarity of style and manner rendered it highly probable. When Strozzi unde- ceived the public, it procured the Abbe Regnier a place in the academy, as an honourable testimony of his ingenuity. Pere Commii-e, when Louis XIV. resolved on the con- quest of Holland, composed a Latin fable, entitled " The Sun and the Frogs," in which he assumed with such felicity the style and character of Phasdrus, that the learned Wolfius was deceived, and innocently inserted it in his edition of that fabulist. Flaminius Strada would have deceived most of the critics of his age, if he had given as the remains of antiquity- the dif- ferent pieces of history and poetry which he composed on the model of the ancients, in his Prolusiones Academicoe. To preserve probabihty he might have given out that he had drawn them from some old and neglected hbrary ; he had then only to have added a good commentary, tending to dis- EDWARD THE FOURTH. 349 play the conformity of the style and manner of these frag- ments with the woi'ks of those authors to whom he ascribed them. Sigonius was a great master of the style of Cicero, and ventured to publish a treatise De Consolatione, as a compo- sition of Cicero recently discovered ; many were deceived by the counterfeit, which was performed with great dexterity, and was long received as genuine ; but he could not deceive Lipsius, who, after reading only ten lines, threw it away, ex- claiming, " Vah ! non est Ciceronis." The late Mr. Burke succeeded more skilfully in his " Vindication of Natural So- ciety," which for a long time passed as the composition of Lord Bolmgbroke ; so perfect is this ingenious imposture of the spirit, manner, and course of thinking of the noble author. I believe it was wi'itten for a wager, and fairly won. EDWARD THE FOURTH. Our Edward the Fourth was dissipated and voluptuous , and probably owed his crown to his handsomeness, his enor- mous debts, and passion for the fair sex. He had many Jane Shores. Honest Philip de Comines, his contemporary, says, " That what greatly contributed to his entering London as soon as he appeared at its gates, was the great debts this prince had contracted, which made his creditors gladly assist him ; and the high favour in wliich he was held by the boxir- geoises, into whose good graces he had frequently glided, and who gained over to him their husbands, who, for the tranquillity of their lives, were glad to depose or to raise monarchs. Many ladies and rich citizens' wives, of whom formerly he had great privacies and familiar acquaintance, gained over to him their husbands and relations." This is the description of his voluptuous life ; we must re- collect that the writer had been an eye-witness, and was an honest man : — 350 EDWARD THE FOURTH. " He had been during the last twelve years more accus- tomed to his ease and pleasure than any other prince who lived in his time. He had nothing in his thoughts but les dames, and of them more than was reasonable ; and hunting- matches, good eating, and great care of his person. When he went in their seasons to these hunting-matches, he always had carried with him great pavilions for les dames, and at the same time gave splendid entertainments ; so that it is not surprising that his person was as jolly as any one I ever saw. He was then young, and as handsome as any man of his age ; but he has since become enormously fat." Since I have got old Philip in my hand, the reader will not, perhaps, be displeased, if he attends to a httle more of his naivete, which will appear in the form of a conversazione of the times. He relates what passed between the Enghsh and the French Monarch. " When the ceremony of the oath was concluded, our king, who was desirous of being friendly, began to say to the king of England, in a laughing way, that he must come to Paris, and be jovial amongst our ladies ; and that he would give him the Cardinal de Bourbon for his confessor, who would very willingly absolve him of any sin which perchance he might commit. The king of England seemed well pleased at the invitation, and laughed heartily; for he knew that the said cardinal was un fort hon compagnon. When the king was returning, he spoke on the road to me ; and said that he did not like to find the kins of Enjjland so much inclined to come to Paris. ' He is,' said he, ' a very handsome king ; he likes the women too much. He may probably find one at Paris that may make him like to come too often, or stay too long. His predecessors have already been too much at Paris and in Normandy ; ' and that ' his company was not agree- able this side of the sea ; but that, beyond the sea, he wished to be ban frtre et amy^ " I have called Philip de Comines honest. The old writers, from the simplicity of their style, usually I'eceive this honour- EDWARD THE FOURTH. 351 able epithet ; but sometimes they deserve it as little as most modern memoir writers. No enemy is indeed so terrible as a man of genius. Comines's violent enmity to the Duke of Burgundy, which appears in these memoirs, has been traced by the minute researchers of anecdotes ; and the cause is not honourable to the memoir-writer, whose resentment was im- placable. De Comines was born a subject of the Duke of Burgundy, and for seven years had been a favourite ; but one day returning from hunting with the Duke, then Count de Charolois, in famihar jocularity he sat himself down be- fore the prince, ordering the prince to pull off his boots. The count laughed, and did this ; but in return for Comines's princely amusement, dashed the boot in his face, and gave Comines a bloody nose. From that time he was mortified in the court of Burgundy by the nickname of the hooted head. Comines long felt a rankling wound in his mind ; and after this domestic quari'el, for it was notliing more, he went over to the king of France, and wrote off his bile against the Duke of Burgundy in these " Memoirs," which give posterity a caricature likeness of that prince, whom he is ever censuring for presumption, obstinacy, pride, and cruelty. This Duke of Burgundy, however, it is said, with many virtues, had but one great vice, the vice of sovereigns, that of ambition ! The impertinence of Comines had not been chastised with great severity ; but the nickname was never forgiven : un- fortunately for the duke, Comines was a man of genius. When we are versed in the history of the times, we often discover that memoir-writers have some secret poison in their hearts. Many, like Comines, have had the boot dashed on their nose. Pei'sonal rancour wonderfully enlivens the style of Lord Orford and Cardinal de Retz. Memoirs are often dictated by its fiercest spirit ; and then histories are composed from memoirs. AVliere is truth ? Not always in histories and memoirs ! 352 ELIZABETH. ELIZABETH. This gi-eat queen passionately admired handsome persona, and he was already far advanced in her favour who ap- proached her with beauty and grace. She had so uncon- querable an aversion for men who had been treated unfor tunately by nature, that she could not endure their presence. When she issued from her palace, her guards were careful to disperse from before her eyes hideous and deformed peo- ple, the lame, the hunchbacked, «S:c. ; in a word, all those whose appearance might shock her fastidious sensations. " There is this singular and admirable in the conduct of Elizabeth that she made her pleasures subservient to her policy, and she maintained her affairs by what in general occasions the ruin of princes. So secret were her amours, that even to the present day their mysteries cannot be pen- etrated ; but the utility she drew from them is pubhc, and always opei*ated for the good of her people. Her lovers were her ministers, and her ministers were her lovers. Love commanded, love was obeyed ; and the reign of this princess was happy, because it was the reign of Love^ in which its chains and its slavery are hked ! " The origin of Raleigh's advancement in the queen's graces was by an act of gallantry. Raleigh spoiled a new plush cloak, while the queen, stepping cautiously on this prodigal's footcloth, shot forth a smile, in which he read promotion. Captain Raleigh soon became Sir Walter, and rapidly ad- vanced in the queen's favour. Hume has furnished us with ample proofs of the passion which her courtiers feigned for her, and it remains a question whether it ever went further than boisterous or romantic gallantry. The secrecy of her amours is not so wonderful as it seems, if there were impediments to any but exterior gallantries. Hume has preserved in his notes a letter written by Raleigh. It is a perfect amorous composition ELIZABETH. 353 After having exerted his poetic talents to exalt her charms and his affection, he concludes, by comparing her majesty, who was then sixty, to Venus and Diana. Sir Walter was not her only courtier who wrote in this style. Even in her old asie she affected a strand fondness for music and danc- ing, with a kind of childish simplicity ; her court seemed a court of love, and she the sovereign. Secretary Cecil, the youngest son of Lord Burleigh, seems to have perfectly en- tered into her character. Lady Derby wore about her neck and in her bosom a portrait ; the queen inquired about it, but her ladysliip was anxious to conceal it. The queen in- sisted on having it ; and discovering it to be the portrait of young Cecil, she snatched it away, tying it upon her shoe, and walked with it ; afterwards she pinned it on her elbow, and wore it some time thei'e. Secretary Cecil hearing of this, composed some verses and got them set to music ; this music the queen insisted on hearing. In his verses Cecil sang that he repined not, though her majesty was pleased to grace others ; he contented himself with the favour she had given him by wearing his portrait on her feet and on her arms ! The ^vl■iter of the letter who relates this anecdote, adds, " All these things are very secret." In this manner she contrived to lay the fastest hold on her able servants, and her servants on her. Those who are intimately acquainted with the private anecdotes of those times, know what encouragement this royal coquette gave to most who were near her person. Dodd, in his Church History, says, that the Earls of Arran and Arundel, and Sir William Pickering, " were not out of hopes of gaining Queen Elizabeth's affections in a matrimo- nial way." She encouraged every person of eminence : she even went so far, on the anniversary of her coronation, as publicly to take a ring from her finger, and put it on the Duke of Alen9on's hand. She also ranked amongst her suitors Henry the Third of France, and Henry the Great. VOL. I. 23 354 ELIZABETH. She never forgave Buzenval for ridiculing her bad pro- nunciation of the French language ; and when Henry IV. sent him over on an embassy, she would not receive him. So nice was the irritable pride of this great queen, that she made her private injuries matters of state. " This queen," writes Du Maurier, in his Memoires pour servir a V Histoire de la Hollande, '' who displayed so many heroic accomplishments, had this foible, of wishing to be thought beautiful by all the world. I heard from my father, that at every audience he had with her majesty, she pulled off her gloves more than a hundred times to display her hands, which indeed were very beautiful and very white." A not less curious anecdote relates to the affair of the Duke of Anjou and our Elizabeth ; it is one more prool of her partiality for handsome men. The writer was Le^vi3 Guyon, a contemporary. " Francis Duke of Anjou, being desirous of marrying a crowned head, caused proposals of mai'riage to be made to Elizabeth, queen of England. Letters passed betwixt them, and their portraits were exchanged. At length her majesty infonned liim, that she would never contract a marriage with any one who sought her, if she did not first see his person. If he would not come, nothing more should be said on the subject. This prince, over-pressed by his young friends, (who were as httle able of judging as himself,) paid no attention to the counsels of men of maturer judgment. He passed over to England without a splendid train. The said lady contemplated his person : she found him iigly, disfigured by deep scars of the smallpox, and that he also had an ill- shaped nose, with swellings in the neck ! All these were so many reasons Avith her, that he could never be admitted into her good gi-aces." Puttenham, in his very rare book of the " Art of Poesie," p. 248, notices the grace and majesty of Elizabeth's demean- our : " Her stately manner of walk, with a certaine granditie ELIZABETH 355 rather than gra\-ietie, marching with leysure, which our sov- sreign ladye and mistresse is accustomed to doe generally, unless it be when she vvalketh apace for her pleasure, or to catch her a heate in the cold mornings." Bv the followino; extract from a letter from one of her gentlemen, we discover that her usual habits, though studi- ous, were not of the gentlest kind, and that the service she exacted from her attendants was not borne without concealed murmurs. The writer groans in secrecy to his friend. Sir John Stanhope writes to Sir Robert Cecil in 1598 : " I was all the afternowTie with her majestie, at my books ; and then thinking to rest me. went in agayne with your letter. She was pleased with the Filosofer's stone, and hath ben all this daye reasonably quyett. Mr. Grevell is absent, and I am tyed so as I cannot styrr, but shall be at the wourse for yt, these two dayes ! " . Puttenham, p. 249, has also recorded an honourable anec- dote of Elizabeth, and characteristic of that high majesty which was in her thoughts, as well as in her actions. When she came to the crown, a knight of the realm, who had in- solently behaved to her when Lady Elizabeth, fell upon his knees and besought her pardon, expecting to be sent to the Tower : she replied mildly, " Do you not know that we are descended of the lion^ whose nature is not to harme or prey upon the mouse, or any other such small vermin ? " Queen Elizabeth was taught to write by the celebrated Roger Ascham. Her writing is extremely beautiful and correct, as may be seen by examining a little manuscrij)t book of prayers, preserved in the British Museum. I have seen her first writing-book, preserved at Oxford in the Bod- leian Library : the gradual improvement in her majesty's handwriting is very honourable to her diligence ; but the most curious thing is the paper on which she tried her pens ; this she usually did by writing the name of her beloved brother Edward ; a proof of the early and ardent attachment s!ie formed to that amiable prince. 356 THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. The education of Elizabeth had been severely classical ; she thought and she wrote in all the spirit of the characters of antiquity ; and her speeches and her letters are studded with apophthegms, and a terseness of ideas and language, that give an exalted idea of her mind. In her evasive answers to the commons, in reply to their petitions to her majesty to marry, she has employed an energetic word : " Were I to tell you that I do not mean to marry, I might gay less than I did intend ; and were I to tell you that I do mean to marry, I might say more than it is proper for you to know ; therefore I give you an answer, answ^erless ! " THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. The Chinese language is like no other on the globe : it is said to contain not more than about three hundred and thirty words, but it is by no means monotonous, for it has four ac- cents ; the even, the raised, the lessened, and the returnihg, wliich multiply every word into four ; as difficult, says Mr. Astle, for an European to understand, as it is for a Chinese to comprehend the six pronunciations of the French E. In fact, they can so diversify their monosyllabic words by the different tones which they give them, that the same character differently accented signifies sometimes ten or more different things. P. Bourgeois, one of the missionaries, attempted, after ten months' residence at Pekin, to preach in the Chinese lan- guage. These are the words of the good father : " God knows how much this first Chinese sermon cost me ! I can assure you this language resembles no other. The same word has never but one termination ; and then adieu to all that in our declensions distinguishes the gender, and the number of things we would speak : adieu, in the verbs, to all which might explain the active person, how and in what THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. 357 time it acts, if it acts alone or with others : in a word, with the Chinese, the same word is substantive, adjective, verb, singuhir, plural, masculine, feminine, «Scc. It is the person who hears who must arrange the circumstances, and guess them. Add to all this, that all the words of this lanjTuase are reduced to three hundred and a few more ; that they are pronounced in so many different ways, that they signify eighty thousand different things, which are expressed by as many different characters. This is not all : the arrangement of all these monosyllables appears to be under no general rule ; so that to know the language after having learnt the words, we must learn every particular phrase : the least in- version would make you umntelligible to three parts of the Chinese. " I wiU give you an example of their words. They told me chou signifies a book : so that I thought whenever the word chuu was pronounced, a book was the subject. Not at all ! ChoUj the next time I heard it, I found signified a tree. Now I was to recollect ; chou was a book or a tree. But this amounted to nothing ; chou, I found, expressed also great heats ; chou is to relate ; chou is the Aurora ; chou means to be accustomed ; chou expresses the loss of a wager, &c. I should not finish, were I to attempt to give you all its sig- nifications. " Notwithstanding these singular difficulties, could one but find a help in the perusal of their books, 1 should not com- plain. But this is impossible ! Their language is quite different from that of simple conversation. What will ever be an insurmountable difficulty to every European is the pronunciation ; every word may be pronounced in five dif ferent tones, yet every tone is not so distinct that an un- practised ear can easily distinguish it. These monosyllables fly with amazing rapidity ; then they are continually dis- guised by elisions, which sometimes hardly leave any thing of two monosyllables. From an aspirated tone you must pass immediately to an even one ; from a whistling note 358 MEDICAL MUSIC. to an inward one : sometimes your voice must proceed from the palate ; sometimes it must be guttural, and almost always nasal. I recited my sermon at least fifty times to my servant before I spoke it in public ; and yet I am told, though he continually coi'rected me, that of the ten parts of the sermon (as the Chinese express themselves), they hardly understood three. Fortunately the Chinese are wonderfully patient ; and they are astonished that any ignorant stranger should be able to learn two words of their language." It has been said that " Satires are often composed in Cliina, which, if you attend to the characters, their import is pure and sublime ; but if you regard the tone only, they con- tain a meaning ludicrous or obscene. In the Chinese one word sometimes corresponds to three or four thousand char- acters ; a property quite opposite to that of our language, in which myriads of different words are expressed by the same letters." MEDICAL MUSIC. In the Philosophical Magazine for May, 1806, we find that " several of the medical literati on the continent are at present engaged in making inquiries and experiments upon the influence of music in the cure of diseases." The learned Dusaux is said to lead the band of this new tribe of amateurs and cognoscenti. The subject excited my curiosity, though I since have found that it is no new discovery. There is a curious article in Dr. Bumey's History of Music, " On the medicinal Powers attributed to Music by the Ancients," wliich he derived from the learned labours of a modern physician, M. Burette, who doubtless could play a tune to, as well as prescribe one to, his patient. He con- ceives that music can reheve the pains of the sciatica ; and that independent of the greater or less skill of the musician, by MEDICAL MUSIC. 359 flattering the ear, and diverting the attention, and occasioning certain vibrations of the nerves, it can remove those obstruc- tions which occasion this disorder. ]\I. Burette, and many modern pliysicians and philosophers, have believed that music has the power of affecting the mind, and the whole nervous system, so as to give a temporary relief in certain diseases, and even a radical cure. De Mairan, Bianchini, and other respectable names, have pursued the same career. But the ancients record miracles ! The Rev. Dr. Mitchell, of Brighthelmstone, wrote a dis- sertation, " De Arte Medendi apiid Priscos, Musices ope atqtie Carminnm'^ printed for J. Nichols, 1783. He writes under the assumed name of Michael Gaspar ; but whether this learned dissertator be grave or jocular, more than one critic has not been able to resolve me. I suspect it to be a satire on the parade of Germanic erudition, by Avhich they often prove a point by the weakest analogies and most fanciful conceits. Amongst half-civilized nations, diseases have been gener- ally attributed to the influence of evil spirits. The depression of mind which is generally attendant on sickness, and the dehrium accompanying certain stages of disease, seem to have been considered as especially denoting the immediate influence of a demon. The effect of music in raising the energies of the mind, or what we commonly call animal spirits, was obvious to early observation. Its power of at- tracting strong attention may in some cases have appeared to affect even those who laboured under a considerable de- gree of mental disorder. The accompanying depression of mind was considered as a part of the disease, perhaps rightly enough, and music was prescribed as a remedy to remove the symptom, when experience had not ascertained the probable cause. Homer, whose heroes exhibit high passions, but not refined manners, represents the Grecian army as employing music to stay the raging of the plague. The Jewish nation, in the time of King David, appear not to have been much 360 MEDICAL MUSIC. further advanced in civilization ; accordingly we find David employed in his youth to remove the mental derangement of Saul by his harp. The method of cure was suggested as a common one in those days, by Saul's servants ; and the suc- cess is not mentioned as a miracle. Pindar, with poetic license, speaks of -^sculapius healing acute disorders with soothing songs ; but ^sculapius, whether man or deity, or between both, is a physician of the days of barbarism and fable. Pliny scouts the idea that music should affect real bodily injury, but quotes Homer on the subject ; mentions Theophrastus as suggesting a tune for the cure of the hip gout, and Cato as entertaining a fancy that it had a good effect when limbs were out of joint, and likewise that Varro thought it good for the gout. Aulus GeUius cites a work of Tlieophrastus, which recommends music as a specific for the bite of a viper. Boyle and Shakspeare mention the effects of music super vesicam. Kircher's " Musurgia," and Swin- burne's Travels, relate the effects of music on those who are bitten by the tarantula. Sir W. Temple seems to have given credit to the stories of the power of music over dis- eases. The ancients, indeed, record miracles in the tales they re- late of the medicinal powers of music. A fever is removed by a song, and deafness is cured by a trumpet, and the pesti- lence is chased away by the sweetness of an harmonious lyre. That deaf people can hear best in a great noise, is a fact alleged by some moderns, in favour of the ancient story of curing deafness by a trumpet. Dr. Willis tells us, says Dr. Burney, of a lady who could hear only while a drum was heating, insomuch that her husband, the account says, hired a drummer as her servant, in order to enjoy the pleasure of her conversation. Music and the sounds of instruments, says the lively Vig- neul de Marville, contribute to the health of the body and the mind ; they quicken the circulation of the blood, they dis- sipate vapours, and open the vessels, so that the action of MEDICAL MUSIC. 301 perspiiation is freer. He tells a story of a person of distinc- tion, who assured him, that once being suddenly seized by violent illness, instead of a consultation of physicians, he im- mediately called a band of musicians ; and their violins played so well in his inside, that his boAvels became perfectly in tune, and in a ftiw hours were harmoniously becalmed. I once heard a story of Farinelli the famous singer, who was sent for to Madrid, to try the effect of his magical voice on the king of Spain. His majesty was buried in the profoundest melancholy : nothing could raise an emotion in him ; he lived in a total oblivion of life ; he sate in a darkened chamber, entirely given up to the most distressing kind of madness. The physicians ordered FarineUi at first to sing in an outer room ; and for the first day or two this was done, without any effect on the royal patient. At length it was observed, that the king, awakening from his stupor, seemed to listen ; on the next day tears were seen starting in his eyes ; the day after he ordered the door of his chamber to be left open — and at length the perturbed spirit entirely left our modem Saul, and the medicinal voice of Farinelli effected what no other medicine could. I now prepare to give the reader some facfs, which he may consider as a trial of creduhty. — Their authorities are, how- ever, not contemptible. — Naturalists assert that animals and birds, as well as " knotted oaks," as Congreve informs us, are sensible to the charms of music. This may serve as an in- stance : — "An officer was confined in the Bastile ; he begged the governor to permit him the use of his lute, to soften, by the harmonies of his instrument, the rigours of his prison. At the end of a few days, this modern Orpheus, playing on his lute, was greatly astonished to see frisking out of their holes great numbers of mice ; and descending from their woven habitations crowds of spiders, who formed a circle about him, while he continued breathing his soul-subduing instrument. He was petrified with jvstonishment. Having ceased to play, the assembly, who did not come to see his 3C2 MEDICAL MUSIC. person, but to hear his instrument, immediately broke up. As he had a great dishke to spiders, it was two days before he ventured a^rain to touch his instrument. At leno-th, having overcome, for the noveUy of his company, his dislike of them, he recommenced his concert, when the assembly was by far more numerous than at first ; and in the course of farther time, he found himself surrounded by a hundred musical amateurs. Having thus succeeded in attracting this company, he treacherously contrived to get rid of them at his will. For this purpose he begged the keeper to give him a cat, which he put in a cage, and let loose at the very instant when the httle hairy people were most entranced by the Or- phean skill he displayed. The Abbe Olivet has described an amusement of Pelisson during his confinement in the Bastile, which consisted in feeding a spider, which he had discovered forming its web in the corner of the small window. For some time he placed his flies at the edge, while his valet, who was with him, played on a bagpipe : little by little, the spider used itself to distin- guish the sound of the instrument, and issued from its hole to run and catch its prey. Thus calling it 'always by the same sound, and placing the flies at a still greater distance, he succeeded, after several months, to drill the spider by regular exercise, so that at length it never failed appearing at the first sound to seize on the fly provided for it, even on the knees of the prisoner. Marville has given us the following curious anecdote on this subject. He says, that doubting the truth of those who say that the love of music is a natural taste, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves are touched by it, being one day in the country I tried an experiment. While a man was playing on the trump marine, I made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was leaning. I did not perceive that the cat was the least affected, and I even judged, by her an*, that she MEDICAL MUSIC. 363 would have given all the instruments in the world for a mouse, sleeping in the sun all the time ; the horse stopped short from time to time before the window, raising his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass ; the dog continued I'or above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking steadfastly at the player ; the ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles peaceably ; the hind lifted u]) her large wide ears, and seemed very atten live ; the cows slept a little, and after gazing, as though tliej- had been acquainted with us, went forward ; some httle bud? who were in an aviary, and others on the trees and bushes, almost tore their little throats wath singing; but the cock, who minded only his hens, and the hens, who were solely employed in scraping a neighbouring dunghill, did not show in any manner that they took the least pleasure in hearing the trump marine. A modern ti-aveller assures us, that he has repeatedly ob- served in the island of Madeira, that the lizards are attracted by the notes of music, and that he has assembled a number of them by the powers of his instrument. When the negroes catch them, for food, they accompany the chase by whistling some tune, Avhich has always the effect of drawing great numbers towards them. Stedman, in his Expedition to Suri- nam, describes certain sibyls among the negroes, who, among several singular practices, can charm or conjure down from the tree certain serpents, who will wreath about the arms, neck, and breast of the pretended sorceress, listening to her voice. The sacred writers speak of the charming of adders and serpents ; and nothing, says he, is more notorious than that the eastern Indians will rid the houses of the most venom- ous snakes, by charming them with the sound of a flute, which calls them out of their holes. These anecdotes seem fuUv confirmed by Sir AVilliam Jones, in his dissertation on the musical modes of the Hindus. "After food, when the operations of digestion and absorp- tion give so much employment to the vessels, that a tempo- g^34 MEDICAL MUSIC. rarj state of mental repose must be fomid, especially in hot climates, essential to health, it seems reasonable to believe that a few agreeable airs, either heard or played without effort, must have all the good effects of sleep, and none of its disadvantages ; putting the soul in tune, as Milton says, for any subsequent exertion ; an experiment often successfully made by myself. I have been assured by a credible eye- witness, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, SLrdjuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they hstened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them to dis- play his archery. A learned native told me that he had frequently seen the most venomous and maUgnant snakes leave their holes upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Per- sian declared he had more than once been present, when a celebrated lutenist, sumamed Bulbul (i. e. the nightingale), was playing to a large company, in a grove near Schiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician, sometimes warbUng on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to ap- proach the instrument, and at length dropping on the ground in a kind of ecstasy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change in the mode." Jackson of Exeter, in reply to the question of Dryden, " What passion cannot music raise or quell ? " sarcastically returns, " What passion can music raise or quell ? " Would not a savage, who had never listened to a musical instrument, feel certain emotions at listening to one for the first lime ? But civihzed man is, no doubt, particularly affected by as- sociation of ideas, as aU pieces of national music evidently prove. The Ranz des Vaches, mentioned by Rousseau in hi's Dictionary of Music, though without any thing striking in the composition, has such a powerful influence over the Swiss, MINUTE WRITING. 365 and impresses them with so violent a desire to return to their own country, that it is forbidden to be played in the Swis6 regiments, in the French service, on pain of death. There is also a Scotch tune, which has the same effect on some of our Nortli Bi-itons. In one of our battles in Calabria, a bagpiper of the 78th Highland regiment, when the light in- fantry charged the French, posted himself on the right, and remained in his solitary situation during the whole of the battle, encouraging the men with a famous Highland charg- ing tune ; and actually upon the retreat and complete rout of the French changed it to another, equally celebrated in Scotland, upon the retreat of and victory over an enemy. His next-hand neighbour guarded him so well that he es- caped unhurt. This was the spirit of the " Last Minstrel," who uifused courage among his countrymen, by possessing it in so animated a degree, and in so venerable a character. MINUTE WRITING. The Iliad of Homer in a nutshell, which Pliny says that Cicero once saw, it is pretended might have been a fact, however to some it may appear impossible, ^lian notices an artist who wrote a distich in letters of gold, which he en- closed in the rind of a grain of corn. Antiquity and modern times record many such penmen, whose glory consisted in writing in so small a hand that the writing could not be legible to the naked eye. Menage men- tions, he saw whole sentences which were not perceptible to the eye without the microscope ; pictures and portraits which appeared at first to be lines and scratches thrown down at random ; one formed the face of the Dauphiness with the most correct resemblance. He read an Italian poem, in praise of this princess, containing some thousand verses, written by an officer, in a space of a foot and a half. Tliis 366 MINUTE WRITING. species of curious idleness has not been lost in our own coun- try ; where this minute writing has equalled any on record. Peter Bales, a celebrated caligrapher in the reign of Eliza- beth, astonished the eyes of beholders by showing them what they could not see ; for in the Harleian MSS. 530, we have a narrative of " a rare piece of work brought to pass by Peter Bales, an Englishman, and a clerk of the chancery ; " it seems by the description to have been the whole Bible " in an English walnut no bigger than a hen's egg. The nut holdeth the book : there are as many leaves in his little book as the great Bible, and he hath written as much in one of his little leaves as a great leaf of the Bible. We are told that this wonderfully unreadable copy of the Bible was " seen by many thousands." There is a drawing of the head of Charles I. in the library of St. John's College at Oxford, wholly com- posed of minute written charactei's, which, at a small distance, resemble the lines of an engraving. The lines qf the head, and the ruff, are said to contmn the book of Psalms, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. In the British Museum we find a drawing representing the portrait of Queen Anne, not much above the size of the hand. On this drawing appears a number of lines and scratches, which the librarian assures the marvelUng spectator includes the entire contents of a thin folio, which on this occasion is carried in the hand. The learned Huet asserts that, like the rest of the world, he considered as a fiction the story of that indefatigable trifier who is said to have inclosed the Iliad in a nutshell. Ex- amining the matter more closely, he thought it possible. One day this learned man ti'ifled half an hour in demonstrating it. A piece of vellum, about ten inches in length and eight in width, pliant and firm, can be folded up, and inclosed in the shell of a large walnut. It can hold in its breadth one line, which can contain 30 verses, and in its length 250 lines. With a crow-quill the writing can be perfect. A page of this piece of vellum will then contain 7500 verses, and the reverse as much ; the whole 15,000 verses of the Ihad. And NUMERICAL FIGUKKS. 367 this lie proved by using a piece of paper, and with a common pen. The thing is possible to be effected ; and if on any occasion paper should be most excessively rare, it may be useful to know that a volume of matter may be contained in a single leaf. NmiERICAL FIGURES. The learned, after many contests, have at length agreed that the numerical figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, usually called Arabic, are of Indian origin. The Ai-abians do not pretend to have been the inventors of them, but borrowed them from the Indian nations. The numeral characters of the Bramins, the Persians, and the Arabians, and other eastern nations, are similar. They appear afterwards to have been introduced into several European nations, by their re- spective travellers, who returned from the East. They were admitted into calendars and chronicles, but they were not in- troduced into charters, says Mr. Astle, before the sixteenth century. The Spaniards, no doubt, derived their use from the Moors who invaded them. In 1240, the Alphonsean astronomical tables were made by the order of Alphonsus X. by a Jew, and an Arabian ; they used these numerals, from whence the Spaniards contend that they were first introduced by them. They were not generally used in Gennany until the be- ginning of the fourteenth century ; but in general the forms of the ciphers were not permanently fixed there till after the year 1531. The Russians were strangers to them, before Peter the Great had finished liis travels in the beginnuig of the last century. The origin of these useful characters Avith the Indians and Arabians, is attributed to their great skill in the arts of astron- omy and of arithmetic, which required more convenient char- acters than alphabetic letters, for the expressing of numbers. 368 NUMERICAL FIGURES. Before the introduction into Europe of these Arabic numer- als, they used alphabetical characters, or Roman numerals. The learned authors of the Nouveau Traite Diplomatique, the most valuable work on every thmg concerning the arts and progress of writing, have given some curious notices on the origin of the Roman numerals. Originally men counted by their fingers ; thus to mark the first four numbers they used an I, which naturally represents them. To mark the fifth, they chose a V, which is made out by bending inwards the three middle fingers, and stretching out only the thumb and the little finger ; and for the tenth they used an X, which is a double V, one placed topsyturvy under the other. From this the progression of these numbers is always from one to five, and from five to ten. The hundred was signified by the capital letter of that word in Latin, C — centum. The other letters D for 500, and M for a 1000, wei-e afterwards added. They subsequently abbreviated their characters, by placing one of these figures before another ; and the figure of less value before a higher number, denotes that so much may be deducted from a greater number ; for instance, IV signifies five less one, that is four ; IX ten less one, that is nine ; but these abbreviations are not found amongst the ancient monuments. These numerical letters are still con- tinued by us, in the accounts of our Exchequer. That men counted originally by their fingers, is no im- probable supposition; it is still naturally practised by the people. In semi-civilized states, small stones have been used, and the etvmologists derive the words calculate and calculations from calculus, the Latin term for a pebble-stone, and by which they denominated their counters used for arith- metical computations. Professor Ward, in a learned dissertation on this subject in the Philosophical Transactions, concludes that it is easier to falsify the Arabic ciphers than the Roman alpha- betic numerals ; when 1375 is dated in Arabic ciphers, if the 3 is only changed into an 0, three centuries are taken away ; ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. 3G9 if the 3 is made into a 9 and take away the 1, four hundred years are lost. Such accidents have assuredly produced much confusion among our ancient manuscripts, and still do in our jjrinted books ; which is the reason that Dr. Robertson in his liistories has also preferred writing his dates in words, rather than confide them to the care of a negligent printer. Gib- bon observes, that some remarkable mistakes liave happened by the word mil. in MSS., which is an abbreviation for soldiers, or for thousands ; and to this blunder he attributes the hicredible numbers of martyrdoms, which cannot other- wise be accounted for by historical records. ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. A BELIEF in judicial astrology can now only exist in the people, who may be said to have no belief at all ; for mere traditional sentiments can hardly be said to amount to a belief. But a faith in this ridiculous system in our country is of late existence ; and was a favourite superstition with the learned. When Charles the First was confined, Lilly the astrologer was consulted for the liour which would favour his escape. A story, which strongly proves how greatly Charles the Second was bigoted to judicial astrology-, is recorded m Bur- net's History of his Own Times. The most respectable characters of the age. Sir William Dugdale, Ehas Ashmole, Dr. Grew, and others, were mem- bers of an astrological club. Congreve's character of Fore- sight, in Love for Love, was then no uncommon per^-on, though the humour now is scarcely intelligible. Dryden cast the nativities of his sons ; and, what is re- markable, liis prediction relating to his son Charles took place. This incident is of so late a date, one might hope it would have been cleared up. VOL. I. 24 370 ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. In 1670, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars prevailed in France among the first rank. The new- born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hand, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Mudicis brought Henry IV., then a child, to old Nostradamus, whom antiquaries esteem more for his chronicle of Provence than his vaticinating powers. The sight of the reverend seer, Avith a beard which " streamed like a meteor in the air," terrified the future hero who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage. One of these magicians having assured Charles IX. that he would hve as many days as he should turn about on his heels in an hour, standing on one leg, his majesty every morning performed that solemn gyration ; the principal officers of the court, the judges, the chancellors, and generals, likewise, in compliment, standing on one leg and turning round ! It has been reported of several famous for their astrologic skill, that they have suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions ; this has been reported of Gar- dan, and Burton^ the author of the Anatomy of JNIelancholy. It is curious to observe the shifts to which astrologers are put when their predictions are not verified. Great winds were predicted, by a famous adept, about the year 1586. No unusual storms, however, happened. Bodin, to save the reputation of the art, applied it as a, figure to some revolutions in the state, and of which there were instances enough at that moment. Among their lucky and urducky days, they pretend to give those of various illustrious persons and of families. One is very striking. — Thursday was the uiducky day of our Henry VIII. He, his son Edward VL, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, all died on a Thursday ! This fact had, no doubt, great weight in this controversy of the astrologers with their adversaries. Lilly, the astrologer, is the Sidrophel of Butler. His Life, written by himself, contains so much artless narrative, ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. 371 and so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the tiuth. In a sketch of the state of astrology in his day, those adepts, whose characters he has drawn, were the lowest miscreants of the town. They all speak of each other as rogues and impostors. Such were Booker, Backhouse, Gadbury ; men who gained a livelihood by practising on the creduhty of even men of learning so late as in 1650, nor w'ere they much out of date in the eighteenth century. In Ashmole's Life an account of these artful impostors may be found. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. This seems a true statement of facts. But Lilly informs us, that in his various conferences with angels, their voice resembled that of the Irish ! The work contains anecdotes of the times. The amours of Lilly with his mistress ai-e characteristic. He was a very artful man, and admirably managed matters which requu-ed deception and invention. Astrology greatly flourished in the time of the civil wars. The royalists and the rebels had their astrologers as well as their soldiers ! and the predictions of the former had a great influence over the latter. On this subject, it may gratify curiosity to notice three or four works, which bear an excessive price. The price can- not entirely be occasioned by their rarity, and I am induced to suppose that we have still adepts, whose faith must be strong, or whose skepticism but weaJi. The Chaldean sages were nearly put to the rout by a (juarto park of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber in 1601. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race, and his personalities made them feel more sore. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with "A Defence of Judiciall Astrol- ogye, in answer to a treatise lately pubUshed by Mr. John 372 ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. Chamber. By Sir Christopher Heydon, Knight ; piinted :it Cambridge, 1 603." This is a handsome quarto of about 500 pages. Sir Christoplier is a learned writer, and a knight worthy to defend a better cause. But his Dulcinca had wrought most wondei-fully on his' imagination. This defence of this fanciful science, if science it may be called, demon- strates notling, wliile it defends every thing. It confiites, according to the knight's own ideas : it alleges a few scattered facts in favour of astrological predictions, which may be picked up in that immensity of fabling Avhich disgraces history. He strenuously denies, or ridicules, what the greatest writers have said against this fanciful art, while he lays great stress on some passages from authors of no authority. The most pleasant part is at the close where he defends the art from the objections of Mr. Chamber by recrimination. Chamber had enriched himself by medical practice ; and when he charges the astrologers with merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches fire, and shows by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art, by its profes- sors attempting to subsist on it, or for the objections which may be raised against its Antal principles, we ought by this argument most heartily to despise the medical science and medical men ! He gives here all he can collect against phy- sic and physicians ; and from the confessions of Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna and Agrippa, medicine appears to be a vainer science than even astrology ! Sir Christopher is a shrewd and ingenious adversary ; but when he says he means only to give Mr. Chamber oU for his vinegar, he has totally mistaken its quality. The defence was answered by Thomas Vicars, in his " Madnesse of Astrologers." But the great work is by Lilly ; and entirely devoted to the adepts. He defends nothing ; for this oracle dehvers his dictum, and details every event as matters not questionable. He sits on the tripod ; and every page is embellished by a horoscope, which he explains with the utmost facihty. Tliis ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS. 373 voluminou?; monument of the foUj of the age is a quarto valued at some guineas ! It is entitled, " Christian Astrology^ modestly treated of in three books, by William Lilly, student m Astrolog)'^, 2d edition, 1659." The most curious part of this work is, " a Catalogue of most astrological authors." There is also a portrait of this arch rogue, and astrologer : on admirable illustration for Lavater ! Lilly's opinions, and his pretended science, were such favourites with the age, that the learned Gataker wrote professedly against this popular delusion. Lilly, at the head of his star-expounding friends, not only formally replied to but persecuted Gataker annually in his predictions, and even struck at his ghost, when beyond the grave. Gataker died in July, 1654 ; and Lilly having written in his almanac of that year for . the month of August this barbarous Latin verse : — Hoc in turnbo jacet presbyter et nebulo ! Here in this tomb lies a presbyter and a knave ! he had the impudence to assert that he had predicted Gat- aker's death ! But the truth is, it was an epitaph like lodgings to let ; it stood empty ready for the first passenger to inhabit. Had any other of that party of any eminence died in that month, it would have been as appositely applied to him. But Lilly was an exquisite rogue, and never at fault. Having prophesied in his alpianac for 1 650, that the parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, when taken up by a messenger, during the night he was confined, he conti-ived to cancel th(j page, printed off another, and showed his copies before the committee, assuring them that the others were none of his own, but forged by his enemies. 374 ALCHYMY. ALCHYIMY. Mrs. Thomas, the Corinna of Dryden, in her Life, h.oa recorded one of the delusions of alchymy. An infatuated lover of this delusive art met with one who pretended to have the power of transmuting lead to gold ; that is, in their language, the imperfect metals to the perfect one. The hermetic philosopher required only the materials, and time, to perform his golden operations. He was taken to the country residence of his patroness. A long laboratory was built, and that his labours might not be impeded by any disturbance, no one was permitted to enter into it. His door was contrived to turn on a pivot ; so that, unseen and un- seeing, his meals were conveyed to him without disti'acting the sublime meditations of the Sage. During a residence of two years, he never condescended to speak but two or three times in a year to his infatuated patroness. When she was admitted into the laboratory, she saw, with pleasing astonishment, stills, cauldrons, long flues, and three or four Vulcanian fires blazing at different corners of this magical mine ; nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable figure of the dusty philosopher. Pale and emaciated with daily operations and nightly vigils, he re- vealed to her, in unintelligible jargon, his progresses ; and having sometimes condescended to explain the mysteries of the arcana, she beheld, or seemed to behold, streams of fluid and heaps of solid ore scattered around the laboratory. Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of lead. Already this unfortunate lady had ex- pended the half of her fortune in supplying the demands of the philosopher. She began now to lower her imagination to the standard of reason. Two years had now elapsed, vast quantities of lead had gone in, and nothing but lead had come out. She disclosed her sentiments to the philosopher. He candidly confessed he was lumseLf surprised at his tardy pro- ALCHYMY. 375 cesses ; but that now he would exert himself to the utmost and that he would venture to perform a laborious operation, which hitherto he had hoped not to have been necessitated to employ. His patroness retired, and the golden visions i-e- sunied aU iheir lustre. One day, as they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack followed by another, loud as the report of cannon, assailed theu* ears. They hastened to the laboratory ; two of the greatest stills had burst, and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are told that, after an- other adventure of this kind, this victim to alchymy, after ruining another patron, in despair swallowed poison. Even more recently we have a history of an alchymist in the life of Romney, the painter. This alchymist, after be- stowing much time and money on preparations for the grand projection, and being near the decisive hour, was induced, by the too earnest request of his wife, to quit his furnace one evening, to attend some of her company at the tea-table. Wliile the projector was attending the ladies, his furnace blew up ! In consequence of this event, he conceived such an antipathy against his -n-ife, that he could not endure the idea of living with her again. Henry YI., Evelyn observes in his Numismata, endeav- oured to recruit his empty coffers by alchymy. The record of this smgular proposition contains " the most solemn and serious account of the feasibility and virtues of the philos- opher's stone, encouraging the search after it, and disfjcnsing with all statutes and prohibitions to the contrary." This ix'cord was probably communicated by Mr. Selden to his beloved friend Ben Jonson, when the poet was writing his comedy of the Alchymist. After this patent Avas jjiiblished, many promised to answer the king's expectations so effectually, that the next year he pubhshed another patent ; wherein he tells his subjects, that the happy hour was drawing nigh, a'ld by means of the 8T0NE, which he should soon be master of, he would pay all 376 ALCHYMY. the debts of the nation in real gold and silver. The persons picked out for his new operators were as remarkable as the patent itself, being a most " miscellaneous rabble " of friars, grocers, mercers, and fishmongers ! This patent was likewise granted authoritate ParliamcrM ; and is given by Prynne in his Auriiin Regince, p. 135. Alchymists were formerly called multipliers, although thoy never could midtiply ; as appears from a statute of Henry IV. repealed in the preceding record. " None from henceforth shall use to midtiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplicatioti ; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony." Among the articles charged on the Protector Somerset is this extraordinary one : — " You commanded multiplication and alcumestry to be practised, thereby to abate the king's coin." Stowe, p. 601. What are we to understand ? Did they believe that alchymy would be so productive of the precious metals as to abate the value of the coin ; or does midtiplication refer to an arbitrary rise in the currency by order of the government ? Every philosophical mind must be convinced that alchymy is not an art, which some have fancifully traced to the re- motest times ; it may be rather regarded, when opposed to such a distance of time, as a modem imposture. Cfesar commanded the treatises of alchymy to be burnt throughout the Roman dominions : Cfesar, Avho is not less to be admired as a philosopher than as a monarch. Mr. Gibbon has this succinct passage relative to alchymy » " The ancient books of alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or the abuse of chemistry. In that immense regis- ter where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the ai'ts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the lea?t mention of the transmutations of metals ; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science ALCHYMY. 377 over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China, as in Europe, A\nth equal eagerness and equal success. The darkness of the middla ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder ; and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts to deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy ; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry." Elias Ashmole writes in his diary — " May 13, lG5o. My father Backhouse (an astrologer who had adopted him for his son, a common practice with these men) lying sick in Fleet- street, over against St. Dunstan's church, and not knowing whether he should live or die, about eleven of the clock, told me in syllables the true matter of the philosopher's stone, which he bequeathed to me as a legacy." By this we learn that a miserable wretch knew the art of muling gold., yet always lived a beggar ; and that Ashmole really imagined he was in possession of the syllables of a secret ! He has, how- ever, built a curious monument of the learned follies of the last age, in his " Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum." Though Ashmole is rather the historian of this vain science than an adept, it may amuse Uterary leisure to turn over this quarto volume, in which he has collected the works of several Eng lish alchymists, subjoining his commentary. It affords a curious specimen of Rosicrucian mysteries ; and Ashmole relates several miraculous stories. Of the philosopher's stone, he says he knows enough to hold his tongue, but not enough to speak. This stone has not only the power of ti-ans- muting any imperfect earthy matter into its utmost degree of perfection, and can convert the basest metals into gold, flints into stone, &c. ; but it has still more occult virtues, when the arcana have been entered into by the choice fathers of hermetic mysteries. The vegetable stone has jiower over the natures of man, beast, fowls, fishes, and all kinds of trees 378 ALCHYMY. and plants, to make them flourish and bear fruit at any time. The magical stone discovers any person wherever he is con- cealed ; while the angelical stone gives the apparitions of angels, and a power of conversing with them. These great mysteries are supported by occasional facts, and illustrated by prints of the most divine and incomprehensible designs, which we would hope were intelligible to the initiated. It may be worth showing, however, how liable even the latter wei'e to blunder on these mysterious hieroglyphics. Ashmole, in one of his chemical works, prefixed a frontispiece, which, in several compartments, exhibited Phcebus on a lion, and opposite to him a lady, who represented Diana, with the moon in one hand and an arrow in the other, sitting on a crab ; Mercury on a tripod, with the scheme of the heavens in one hand, and his caduceus in the other. These were intended to express the materials of the stone, and the season for the process. Upon the altar is the bust of a man, liis head covered by an astrological scheme dropped from the clouds ; and on the altar are these words, " Mercuriophilus Anglicus," i. e. the Enghsh lover of hermetic philosophy. There is a tree, and a Uttle creature gnawing the root, a pillar adorned with musical and mathematical instruments, and another with military ensigns. Tliis strange composition created great in- quiry among the chemical sages. Deep mysteries were conjectured to be veiled by it. Verses were written in the highest strain of the Rosicrucian language. Ashmole confessed he meant nothing more than a kind of pun on his own name, for the tree was the ash, and the creature was a mole. One pillar tells his love of music and freemasonary, and the other his military preferment and astrological studies ! He after- wards regretted that no one added a second volume to his work, from which he himself had been hindered, for the honour of the family of Hermes, and " to show the world what excellent men we had once of our nation, famous for this kind of philosophy, and masters of so transcendent a secret." TITLES OF BOOKS. 379 Modern chemistry is not without a hope, not to say a cer- tainfy, of verifying the golden visions of the alchymists. Dr. Girtanner, of Gottingen, not long ago adventured the follow- ing prophecy : " In the nineteenth century the transmutation of metals will be generally known and practised. Every chemist and every artist will make gold; kitchen utensils will be of silver, and even gold, which will contribute more than any thing else to prolong life, poisoned at present by the oxides of copper, lead, and iron, which we daily swallow Avith our food." PhiL Mag. vol. vi. p. 383. Tliis subhme chemist, though he does not venture to predict that universal elixir, which is to prolong life at pleasure, yet approximates to it. A chemical friend wa-ites to me, that " The metals seem to be composite bodies, which nature is perpetually preparing; and it may be reserved for the future researches of science to ti'ace, and perhaps to imitate, some of these curious opera- tions." Sir Humphry Davy told me that he did not consider this undiscovered art an impossible thing, but which, should it ever be discovered, would certainly be useless. TITLES OF BOOKS. "Were it inquired of an ingenious writer what page of his work had occasioned him most perplexity, he would often point to the title-jyage. The curiosity which we there would excite, is, however, most fastidious to gratify. Among those who appear to have felt this irksome situa tion, are most of our periodical writers. Tlie " Tatler " and the " Spectator," enjoying priority of conception, have adopted titles with cliaracteristic felicity ; but perhaps the invention of the authors begins to fail in the " Reader," the " Lover," and the " Theatre ! " Succeeding writers were as unfortu- nate in their titles, as their works ; such are the " Universal Spectator," and the " Lay Monastery." The copious mind 330 TITLES OF BOOKS. of Johnson could not discover an approjinate title, and indeed in the first " Idler," acknowledged his despair. The " Ram- bler " was so little understood, at the time of its appearance, that a French journalist has translated it as "Xe Chevalier Errant ; " and when it was corrected to L' Errant, a foreigner drank Johnson's health one day, by innocently addressing him by the appellation of Mr. " Vagabond ! " The "Adven- turer " cannot be considered as a fortunate title ; it is not appropriate to those pleasing miscellanies, for any writer is an adventurer. The " Loungei*," the " Mirror," and even the " Connoisseur," if examined accurately, present nothing in the titles descriptive of the works. As for the " World," it could only have been given by the fasliionable egotism of its authors, who considered the world as merely a circuit round St. James's Street. When the celebrated father of all re- views, Le Journal des Sgavans, was first published, the very title repulsed the public. The author was obliged in his suc- ceeding volumes to soften it do\vn, by explaining its general tendency. He there assures the curious, that not only men of learning and taste, but the humblest mechanic, may find a profitable amusement. An English novel, pubHshed \\\i\\ the title of " The Champion of Virtue," could find no readers ; but afterwards passed through several editions under the hapi^ier invitation of " The Old English Baron." " The Concubine," a poem by Mickle, could never find purchasers, till it assumed the more delicate title of " Sir Martyn." As a subject of literary curiosity, some amusement may be gathered from a glance at what has been doing in the world, concerning this important portion of every book. The Jewish and many oriental authors were fond of alle- gorical titles, which always indicate the most puerile age of taste. The titles were usually adapted to their obscure works. It might exercise an able enigmatist to explain their allusions ; for we must understand by " The Heart of Aaron," that it is a commentary on several of the prophets. " The Bones of Joseph " is an introduction to the Talmud. " The TITLES OF BOOKS. 381 Garden of Nuts," and " The Golden Applet," are theological questions ; and " The Pomegranate with its Flower," is a treatise of ceremonies, not any more practised. Jortin gives a title, which he says of all the fantastical titles he can recol- lect is one of the prettiest. A rabbin published a catalogue of rabbinical writers, and called it Labia Dormientium, from Cantic. vii. 9. " Like the best wine of my beloved that goeth down sw^eetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak." It hath a double meaning, of which he was not aware, for most of his rabbinical brethi-en talk very much like men in their sleep. Almost all their works bear such titles as bread — gold — silver — roses — eyes, &c. ; in a word, any thing that signifies nothing. Atiected title-pages were not peculiar to the orientals : the Greeks and the Romans have shown a finer taste. They had their Cornucopias, or horns of abundance — Limones, or meadows — Pinakidions, or tablets — Pancarpes, or all sorts of fi'uits ; titles not unhappily adapted for the miscellanists. The nine books of Herodotus, and the nine epistles of ^schines, were respectively honoured by the name of a Muse ; and three orations of the latter, by those of the Graces. The modem fanatics have had a most barbarous taste for titles. We could produce numbers from abroad, and at home. Some works have been called, " Matches lighted at the Di\-ine Fire," — and one " The Gun of Penitence : " a collection of passages from the fathers is called " The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary : " we have " The Bank of Faith," and " The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit : " one of these works beare the following elaborate title ; " Some fine Biscuits baked m the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the SparroAvs of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation." Sometimes their quaintness has some humour. Sir Humphrey Lind, a zeal- ous puritan, published a work wliich a Jesuit answered by 382 TITLES OF BOOKS. another, entitled "A pair of spectacles for Sir Humphrey Lind." The doughty knight retorted, by "A Case for Sir Pluraphrey Lind's Spectacles." Some of these obscure titles have an entertaining ab- surdity ; as " The Three Daughters of Job," which is a trea- tise on the three virtues of patience, fortitude, and pain. " The Innocent Love, or the Holy Knight," is a description of the ardours of a saint for the Virgin. " The Sound of the Trumpet," is a work on the day of judgment ; and "A Fan to drive away Flies," is a theological treatise on purgatory. We must not write to the utter neglect of our title ; and a fair author should have the literary piety of ever having " the fear of his title-page before his eyes." The following are improper titles. Don Matthews, chief huntsman to Philip IV. of Spain, entitled his book " The Origin and Dignity of the Royal House," but the entire work relates only to hunting. De Chantereine composed several moral essays, which being at a loss how to entitle, he called " The Education of a Prince." He would persuade the reader in his preface, that though they were not composed Avith a view to this subject, they should not, however, be censured for the title, as they partly related to the education of a prince. The world was too sagacious to be duped ; and the author in his second edition acknowledges the absurdity, drops " the magnificent title," and calls his work " Moral Essays." Montaigne's im- mortal history of his own mind, for such are his " Essays," has assumed perhaps too modest a title, and not sufficiently discriminative. Sorlin equivocally entitled a collection of essays, " The "Walks of Richelieu," because they were com- posed at that place ; " The Attic Nights " of Aulus Gellius were so called, because they were written in Attica. Mr. Tooke, in his grammatical " Diversions of Purley," must have deceived many. A rhodomontade title-page was once a great favourite. There was a time when the republic of letters was over-built with " Palaces of Pleasure," " Palaces of Honour," and " Pal- TITLES OF BOOKS. 383 aces of Eloquence ; " with " Temples of Memory," and " Theatres of Human Life," and "Amphitheatres of Provi- dence;" "Pharoses, Gardens, Pictures, Treasures." The epistles of Guevara dazzled the public eye with their splen- did title, for they were called " Golden Epistles ; " and the " Golden Legend " of Voragine had been more appropriately entitled leaden. They were once so fond of novelty, that eveiy book recom- mended itself by such titles as "A new Method ; new Ele- ments of Geometry ; the new Letter Wiiter, and the new Art of Cookery." To excite the curiosity of the p'ous, some writers employed artifices of a very ludicrous nature. Some made their titles rhyming echoes ; as this one of a father, who has given his works under the title of Scalce Alee animi ; and Jesus esus novus Orhis. Some have distributed them according to the measure of time, as one Father Nadasi, the greater part of whose works are years, months, weeks, days, and hours. Some have bon'owed their titles from the parts of the body ; and others have used quaint expressions, such as — Think before you leap — We must all die — Compel them to enter. Some of our pious authors appear not to have been aware that they were burlesquing rehgion. One Massieu having written a moral explanation of the solemn anthems sung in Advent, which begin with the letter o, published this work under the punning title of Za douce Moelle, et la Sauce friande des os Savoureux de VAvent. The ]Marquis of Carraccioli assumed the ambiguous title of La Jouissance de soi-meme. Seduced by the epicurean title of self-enjoyment, the sale of the work was continual with the libertines, who, however, found nothing but vei"y tedious essays on religion and morality. In the sixth edition the marquis greatly exults in his successful contrivance ; by which means he had punished the \'icious curiosity of certain persons, and perhaps had persuaded some, whom otherwise his book might never have reached. 384 TITLES OF BOOKS. If a title be obscure, it raises a prejudice against the author ; we are apt to suppose that an ambiguous title is the etFect of an intricate or confused mind. Baillet censures the Ocean Macromicrocosmic of one Sachs. To understand this title, a grammarian would send an inquirer to a geographer, and he to a natural philosopher ; neither would probably thinli of recurring to a physician, to inform one that this am- biguous title signifies the connection which exists between the motion of the waters with that of the blood. He censures Leo Allatius for a title which appears to me not inelegantly conceived. This writer has entitled one of his books the Urban Bees ; it is an account of those illustrious writers who flourished during the pontificate of one of the Barberinis. The allusion refers to the bees which were the arms of this family, and Urban VIII. is the Pope designed. The false idea which a title conveys is alike prejudicial to the author and the reader. Titles are generally too prodigal of their promises, and their authors are contemned ; but the works of modest authors, though they present more than they promise, may fail of attracting notice by their extreme sim- plicity. In either case, a collector of books is prejudiced ; he is induced to collect what merits no attention, or he passes over those valuable works whose titles may not happen to be interesting. It is related of PinelH, the celebrated collector of books, that the booksellers permitted him to remain hours, and sometimes days, in their shops to examine books before he purchased. He was desirous of not injuring his precious collection by useless acquisitions ; but he confessed that he sometimes could not help being dazzled by magnificent titles, nor being mistaken by the simplicity of others, which had been chosen by the modesty of their authors. After all, many authors are really neither so vain, nor so honest, as they appear ; for magnificent, or simple titles, have often been given from the difficulty of forming any others. It is too often with the Titles of Books, as with those painted representations exhibited by the keepers of wild LITERARY FOLLIES. 385 beasts; where, In general, the picture itself is made more striking and inviting to the eye, than the inclosed animal is always found to be. LITERARY FOLLIES. TnK Greeks composed lipogrammatic works ; works in which one letter of the alphabet is omitted. A lipogrtunma- tist is a letter -dropper. In this manner Tryphiodorus wrote his Odyssey ; he had not a in his first book, nor ji in his second ; and so on with the subsequent letters one after another. This Odyssey was an imitation of the lipogrammatic Iliad of Nestor. Among other works of this kind, Athcnaius men- tions an ode by Pindar, in which he had purposely omitted the letter S ; so that this inept ingenuity appears to have been one of those literary fashions which are sometimes en- couraged even by those who should first oppose such pro- gresses into the realms of nonsense. There is in Latin a little prose work of Fulgentius, wliich the author divides into twenty-three chapters, according to the order of the twenty-three letters of the Latin alphabet. From A to O are still remaining. The first chapter is without A ; the second without B ; the third without C ; and so with the rest. There are five novels in prose of Lopes de Vega ; the first without A, the second without E, the third without I, &c. Who will attempt to verify them ? The Orientalists are not without this literary folly. A Persian poet read to the celebrated Jami a gazel of his own ^•omposition, which Jami did not like : but the writer replied, it was notwithstanding a very curious sonnet, for the letter Aliff Avas not to be found in any one of the words ! Jami sarcastically replied, " You can do a better thing yet ; take away all the letters from every word you have written." To these woiks may be added the Ecloga de Calvis, by Hugbald the monk. All the words of this silly work begin VOL. I. 25 386 LITERARY FOLLIES. with a C. It is printed in Dornavius. Pugna Porcorum , all the words beginning with a P, in the Nugae Venales, Canum cum cattis certamen ; the words beginning with a C : a performance of the same kind in the same work. Gregorio Leti presented a discourse to the Academy of the Humorists at Rome, throughout which he had purposely omitted tlie letter R, and he entitled it the exiled R. A friend having requested a copy, as a literary curiosity, for so he considered this idle performance, Leti, to show that this affair was not so difficult, replied by a copious answer of seven pages, in which he had observed the same severe ostracism against the letter R! Lord North, in the court of James I., has written a set of Sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in the reign of Edward IV., translated the Moral Proverbs of Christiana of Pisa, a poem of about two hundred lines, the greatest part of which he contrived to conclude with the letter E ; an instance of his lordship's hard appli- cation, and the bad taste of an age which. Lord Orford observes, had witticisms and whims to struggle with, as well as ignorance. It has been well observed of these minute triflers, that extreme exactness is the sublime of fools, whose labours may be well called, in the language of Dryden, " Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry." And Martial says, Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum. Which we may translate, 'Tis a folly to sweat o'er a difficult trifle, And for silly devices invention to rifle. I shall not dwell on the wits who composed verses in the forms of hearts, wings, altars, and true-love knots ; or as Ben •Jonson describes their grotesque shapes, " A oair of scissors and a comb in verse." LITERARY FOLLIES. 387 Tom Nash, who loved to push the ludicrous to its extreme, in his amusing invective against the classical Gabriel Harvey, tells us that " he had writ verses in all kinds ; in Ibrra of a pair of gloves, a pair of spectacles, and a pair of i)Ot-liooks," &c. Tliey are not less absurd, who expose to public ridicule the name of their mistress by employing it to form their acrostics. I have seen some of the latter where, both sides and crosswai/s, the name of the mistress or the patron has been sent down to posterity with eternal torture. When 07ie name is made out four times in the same acrostic, the great difhculty must have been to have found words by which the letters forming the name should be forced to stand in their particular places. It might be incredible that so great a genius as Boccaccio could have lent himself to these literary fashions ; yet one of the most gigantic of acrostics may be seen in his works ; it is a poem of tifty cantos ! Guinguene has preserved a specimen in his Literary History of Italy, voL iii. p. 54. Puttenham, in "The Art of Poesie," p. 75, gives several odd specimens of poems in the forms of loz- enges, rhomboids, pillars, &c. Puttenham has contrived to form a defence for describing and making such trifling de- vices. He has done more : he has erected two pillars himself to the honour of Queen Ehzabeth ; every pillar consists of a base of eight syllables, the shaft or middle of four, and the capital is equal with the base. The only difference between the two pillars consists in this ; in the one " ye must read upwards," and in the other the reverse. These pillars, notwithstanding this fortunate device and variation, may be fixed as two columns in the porch of the vast temple of literary folly. It was at this period, when words or verse were tortured into such fantastic forms, that the trees in gardens were twisted and sheared into obelisks and giants, peacocks, or flower-pots. In a copy of verses, " To a hair of my mis- tress's eye-lash," the merit, next to the choice of the subject, must have been the arrangement, or the disarrangement, of 388 LITERARY FOLLIES. the whole poem into the form of a heart. With a pair of wings many a sonnet fluttered, and a sacred hymn was ex- pressed by the mystical triangle. Acrostics are formed from the initial letters of every verse ; but a different conceit regulated chronogrmns, which were used to describe dates — ■ the numeral letters, in whatever part of the word they stood, were distinguished from other letters by being written iu capitals. In the following chronogram from Horace, — -feriam sidera vertice, by a strange elevation of capitals the chronogrammatist compels even Horace to give the year of our Lord thus, — feriaM siDera Vertice. MDVI. The Acrostic and the Chronogram are both ingeniously described in the mock epic of the Scribleriad. The initial letters of the acrostics are thus alluded to in the literary wars : — Firm and compact, in three fair columns wove, O'er the smooth plain, the bold aavstics move; IIi(/h o'er the rest, the towering leaders rise With liitibs (jiyantic, and superior size. But the looser character of the chronograms, and the dis- order in which they are found, are ingeniously sung thus : — Not thus the looser chronograms prepare Carelei5s their troops, undisciplined to war; With rank irregular, confused they stand. The CHIEFTAINS MINGLING with the vulgar band. He afterwards adds others of the illegitimate race of wit : — To join these squadrons, o'er the champaign came A numerous race of no ignoble name; Riddle and Rebus, Riddle's dearest son. And false Conundrum and insidious Pun. Fustian, who scarcely deigns to tread the ground, And Rondeau, wheeling in repeated round. On their fair standards, by the wind display'd. Eggs, altars, wings, pipes, axes, were pourtray'd. I find the origin of Bouts-rimes, or " Rhyming Ends," in Goujet's Bib. Fr. xvi. p. 181. One Dulot. a foohsh poet, LITERARY FOLLIES. 389 when sonnets were in demand, had a singular custom of pre- paring the riiymes of these poems to be filled up at his teisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was regret- ting most the loss of three hundred sonnets : his friends were (tstonished that he had written so many which they had never heard. " They were blank sonnets," he replied ; and ex- plained the mystery by describing his Bouts-rimes. The idea appeared ridiculously amusing ; and it soon became fashionable to collect the most difficult rhymes, and fill up the lines. The Charade is of recent birth, and I cannot discover the origin of this species of logogriphes. It was not known in France so late as in 1771 ; in the great Dictionnaire de Trevoux, the term appears only as the name of an Indian sect of a military charactei". Its mystical conceits have occa- sionally displayed singular felicity. Anagrams were another whimsical invention ; with the letters of any name they contrived to make out some entire word descriptive of the character of the person who bore the name. These anagrams, therefore, were either satirical or complimentary. "When in fashion, lovers made use of them continually : I have read of one, whose mistress's name was Magdalen, for whom he composed, not only an epic under that name, but as a proof of his passion, one day he sent her three dozen of anagrams all on her lovely name. Scioppius imagined himself fortunate that his adversary Scaliger was perfectly Sacrilege in all the oblique cases of the Latin lan- guage ; on this principle Sir John Wiat was made out, to his own satisfaction — a wit. They were not always correct when a great compliment was required ; the poet John Cleve- land was strained hard to make Heliconian dew. This lite- rar}" trifle has, however, in our own times, produced several, equally ingenious and caustic. Verses of grotesque shapes have sometimes been contrived to convey ingenious thoughts. Pannard, a modern French poet, has tortured his agi'eeable vein of poetry into such forms. 390 LITERARY FOLLIES. He has made some of his Bacchanalian songs to take the figures of bottles and others of glasses. These objects are perfectly drawn by the various measures of the verses which form the songs. He has also introduced an echo in his verses wliich he contrives so as not to injure their sense. This was practised by the old French bards in the age of. Marot, and this poetical whim is ridiculed by Butler in his Hudibras, Part I. Canto 3, Vei'se 190. I give an example of these poetical echoes. The following ones are ingenious, lively, and satirical : — Pour nous plaire, un plwme< Met Tout en usage: Mais on trouve souvent Vent Dans son langage. On y voit des Comniig 3Iis Comme des Princes, Apr^s etre \Qnu$ Nuds De leurs Provinces. The poetical whim of Cretin, a French poet, brought into fashion punning or equivocal rhjines. Maret thus addressed him in his own way : — L'homme, sotart, et non S(^nvant Comme un rotisseur, qui live oye, La faute d'autrui, nonce avant, Qu'il la cognoisse, ou qu'il la voye, &c. In these lines of Du Bartas, this poet imagined that he imitated the harmonious notes of the lark : " the sound " is here, however, not " an echo to the sense." La gentille aloiiette, avec son tirelire, Tirelire, a lire, et tireliran, tire Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lien, Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu. adieu Dieu. LITERARY FOLLIES. 391 The French have an ingenious kind of Nonsense Verses called Amphiffouries. This word is composed of a Greek adverb signifying about, and of a substantive signifying a circle. The following is a specimen, elegant in the selec- tion of words, and what the French called richly rhymed, but in fact they are fine verses without any meaning what- ever. Pope's Stanzas, said to be written by a person of quality, to ridicule the tuneful nonsense of certain bards, and which Gilbert Wakefield mistook for a serious composition, and wrote two pages of Commentary to prove this song was disjointed, obscure, and absurd, is an excellent specimen of these Amphigouries. AMPHIGOURIE. Qii'il est lieureux de se defendre Quand le coeur ne s'est pas rendu! Mais qTi'il est faclieux de se rendre Quand le bonheur est siispendu ! Par un discoiirs sans suite et tendre, Egarez un ccEur aj- dia, formed such an opinion of its extensive sale, that he put on the title-page the words '■'■ first edition" a hint to the gentle reader that it would not be the last. Desmarest was so delighted with his " Clovis," an epic poem, that he solemnly concludes his preface with a thanksgiving to God, to whom he atti-ibutes all its glory ! This is hke that conceited mem- ber of a French Parliament, who was overheard, after his tedious harangue, muttering most devoutly to himself, " Non nobis Dumine." Several works have been produced from some odd coinci- dence with the name of their authors. Thus, De Saussay has written a folio volume, consisting of panegyrics of pei*sons of eminence whose christian names were Andrcto ; because Andrew was his own name. Two Jesuits made a similar collection of illustrious men Avhose christian names were Theophilus and Philip, being their own. Anthony Saunderus has also composed a treatise of illustrious Anthonies ! Aiid we have one Buchanan who has written the lives of those persons who were so fortunate as to have been his name- sakes. Several forgotten writers have frequently been intruded on the public eye, merely through such trifling coincidences as being members of some particular society, or natives of some particular country. Cordeliers have stood forward to revive the writings of Duns Scotus, because he had been a cordelier ; and a Jesuit com])iled a folio on the antiquities of a province, merely from the circumstance that the founder of his order, Ignatius Loyola, had been born there. Several 400 LITERARY FOLLIES. of the classics are violently extolled above others, merely from the accidental circumstance of their editors having col- lected a vast number of notes, which they resolved to dis- charge on the public. County histories have been frequently compiled, and provincial writers have received a temporary existence, from the accident of some obscure individual being an inhabitant of some obscure town. On such hterary follies Malebranche has made this refined observation. The critics, standing in some way connected with the author, their self-love inspires them, and abundantly furnishes eulogiums wliich the author never merited, that they may thus obliquely reflect some praise on themselves. This is made so adroitly, so delicately, and so concealed, that it is not perceived. The following are strange inventions, originating in the wilful bad taste of the authors. Otto Venius, the master of Rubens, is the designer of Xe Theatre moral de la Vie humaine. In this emblematical history of human life, he has taken his subjects from Horace ; but certainly his conceptions are not Horatian. He takes every image in a literal sense. If Horace says, " Misce stultitiam consiliis breveji," be- hold, Venius takes brevis personally, and represents Folly as a little short child / of not above three or four years old ! In the emblem which answers Horaces's " jRaro antecedentem scelestuin deseruit pede pcena claudo," we find Punishment w'nh a ivooden leg. — And for "pulvis et u:\ibra sumus," we have a dark burying vault, with dust sprinkled about the flooi", and a shadow walking upright between two ranges of urns. For " Virtus est vitium fugure, et sapientia prima stul- titid caruisse" most flatly he gives seven or eight Vices pursuing Virtue, and Folly just at the heels of Wisdom. I saw in an English Bible printed in Holland an instance of the same taste : the artist, to illustrate " Thou seest the mote in thy neighbour's eye, but not the heam in thine own," has actually placed an immense beam which projects from the eye of the caviller to the ground ! LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 401 As a contrast to the too obvious taste of Venius, may be placed Cksark di Rii'A, who is the author of an Italian work, translated into most European languages, the Iconologia ; the favourite book of the age, and the fertile parent of the most absurd offspring which Taste has known. Ripa is as darkly subtile as Venius is obvious; and as far-fetched in his conceits as the other is literal. Ripa represents Beauty by a naked laily, with her head in a cloud ; because the true idea of beauty is hard to be conceived! Flattery, by a lady with a flute in her hand, and a stag at her feet, because stags are said to love music so much, that they suffer themselves to be taken, if you play to them on a flute. Framl, with two hearts in one hand, and a mask in the other; — his collection is too numerous to point out more instances. Kipa also de- scribes how the allegorical figures are to be coloured ; Hope is to have a sky-blue robe, because she always looks towards heaven. Enough of these capriccios ! LITERARY CONTROVERSY. In the article Milton, I had occasion to give some stric- tures on the asperity of literary controversy, drawn from his own and Salmasius's writings. If to some the subject has appeared exceptionable, to me, I confess, it seems useful, and I shall therefore add some other particulars ; for this topic has many branches. Of the following specimens the gi'oss- ness and malignity are extreme ; yet they were employed by the first scholars in Europe. JNIartin Luther was not destitute of genius, of learning, or of eloquence ; but his violence disfigured his works with sin- gularities of abuse. The great reformer of superstition had himself all the vulgar ones of his day ; he believed that flies were devils ; and that he had had a buffeting with Satan, when his left ear felt the prodigious beating. Hear him ex- VoL. I 26 402 LITERARY CONTROVERSY. press himself on the Catholic divines. " The Papists are all asses, and will always remain asses ; Put them in whatever sauce you choose, boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, beat, hashed, they are always the same asses." Gentle and moderate, compared with a salute to his Holi- ness : — '' The Pope was born out of the Devil's posteriors. He is full of devils, lies, blasphemies, and idolatries ; he is anti-Christ ; the robber of churches ; the ravisher of virgins ; the greatest of pimps ; the governor of Sodom, &c. If the Turks lay hold of us, then we shall be in the hands of the Devil ; but if we remain with the Pope, we shall be in hell. — What a pleasing sight would it be to see the Pope and the Cardinals hanging on one gallows in exact order, like the seals which dangle from the bulls of the Pope ! What an excellent council would they hold under the gallows ! " Sometimes, desirous of catching the attention of the vulgar, Luther attempts to enliven his style by the grossest buffoone- ries : " Take care, my Uttle Popa ! my little ass ! Go on slowly : the times are slippery : this year is dangerous : if thou fiillest, they will exclaim. See ! how our little Pope is spoilt ! " It was fortunate for the cause of the Reformation that the violence of Luther was softened in a considerable degree by the meek Melancthon, who often poured honey on the sting inflicted by the angry wasp. Luther was no re- specter of kings ; he was so fortunate, indeed, as to find among his antao-onists a crowned head ; a great good fortune for an obscure controversialist, and the very pnnctvm saliens of controversy. Our Henry VIII. wrote his book against the new doctrine : then warm from scholastic studies, Henry presented Leo X. with a work highly creditable to his abili- ties, according to the genius of the age. Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, has analyzed the book, and does not ill describe its spirit : " Henry seems superior to his adver- sary in the vigour and propriety of his style, in the force of his reasoning, and the learning of his citations. It is true he leans too much upon his character, argues in his garter-robes, LITERARY C0NTR0\T:RSY. 403 and writes as 'twere with his scepter." But Luther in reply abandons his pen to all kinds of" railing and abuse. He ad- dresses Henry VI H. in the following style : " It is hard to say it" folly can be more foolish, or stupidity moi'e stupid, than is the head of Henry. He has not attacked me with the heart of a king, but witli the impudence of a knave. This rotten worm of the earth having blasphemed the majesty of my king, I have a just right to bespatter his English maj- esty with his own dirt and ordure. This Henry has lied." Some of his original expressions to our Henry VIII. are these : " Stulta, ridicula, et verissime Henriciana et Thomas- tica sunt hajc — Regem Angliie Henricum istum plane mentiri, &c. — Hoc agit inquietus Satan, ut nos a Scripturis avocet per sceleratos Henricos," &c. — He was repaid with caj)ital and interest by an anonymous reply, said to have been written by Sir Thomas More, who concludes his arguments by leaving Luther in language not necessary to translate : " cum suis furiis et furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatumque." Such were the vigorous elegancies of a con- troversy on the Seven Sacraments ! Long after, the court of Rome had not lost the taste of these " bitter herbs : " for in the bull of the canonization of Ignatius Loyola in August, 1623, Luther is called monstriun teterrimum et detestahilis pestis. Calvin was less tolerable, for he had no Melancthon ! His adversaries are never others than knaves, lunatics, drunkards, and assassins ! Sometimes they are characterized by the fa- miliar appellatives of bulls, asses, cats, and hogs ! By him Catiiolic and Lutheran are alike hated. Yet, after having given vent to this virulent humour, he frequently boasts of his mildness. Wlien he reads over his writings he tells us, that he is astonished at his forbearance ; but tliis, he adds, is the duty of every Christian ! at the same time, he generally finishes a period with — " Do you hear, you dog ? " '' Do you hear, madman ? " Beza, the disciple of Calvin, sometimes imitates the luxu- 404 LITERARY CONTROVERSY. riant abuse of his master. "When he writes against Tilleniont, a Lutheran minister, he bestows on him the following titles of honour : — " Polyphemus ; an ape ; a great ass, who is dis- tinguished from other asses by wearing a hat ; an ass on two feet ; a monster composed of part of an ape and wild ass ; a villain who merits hanging on the first tree we find." And Beza was, no doubt, desirous of the office of executioner ! The Catholic party is by no means inferior in the felicities of their style. The Jesuit Raynaud calls Erasmus the " Ba- tavian buffoon," and accuses him of nourishing the egg which Luther hatched. These men were alike supposed by their friends to be the inspired regulators of Religion ! Bisliop Bedell, a great and good man, respected even by his adversaries, in an address to his clergy, observes, " Our calhng is to deal with errors, not to disgrace the man with scolding words. It is said, of Alexander, I think, when he overheard one of his soldiers railing lustily against Darius his enemy, that he reproved him, and added, ' Friend, I en- tertain thee to fight against Darius, not to revile him ; ' and my sentiments of treating the Catholics," concludes Bedell, " are not conformable to the practice of Luther and Calvin ; but they were but men, and perhaps we must confess they suffered themselves to yield to the violence of passion." The Fathers of the Church were proficients in the art of abuse, and very ingeniously defended it. St. Austin affirms that the most caustic personality may produce a wonderful effect, in opening a man's eyes to his own follies. He illus- trates his position with a story, given with great simplicity, of his mother Saint Monica ^vith her maid. Saint IMonica certainly would have been a confirmed drunkard, had not her maid timelily and outrageously abused her. The story will amuse. — " My mother had by little and httle accustomed herself to relish wine. They used to send her to the cellar, as being one of the soberest in the family : she first sipped from the jug and tasted a few drops, for she abhorred wine, and did not care to drink. However, she gradually accus LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 405 tomed lierself, and from sipping it on her lips she swallowed a draught. As people from the smallest faults insensibly in- crease, she at length liked wine, and drank bumpers. But one day being alone with the maid who usually attended her lo the cellar, they quarrelled, and the maid bittei'ly reproached her with being a drvnkard ! That single word struck her so poignantly that it opened her understanding ; and reflect- ing on the deformity of the vice, she desisted forever from its use." To jeer and play the droll, or, in his own words, de houf- fonner, was a mode of controversy the great Arnauld de- fended, as permitted by the writings of the holy fathers. It is still more singular, when he not only brings forward as an example of this ribaldry, Elijah mocking at the false divini- ties, but God himself hantering the first man after his fall. He justifies the injurious epithets which he has so liberally bestowed on his adversaries by the example of Jesus Christ and the apostles ! It was on these grounds also that the celebrated Pascal apologized for the invectives with which he has occasionally disfigured his Provincial Letters. A Jesuit has collected "An Alphabetical Catalogue of the Names of Beasts by which the Fathers characterized the Heretics ! " It may be found in Erotemata de malis ac bonis Lihris, p. 93, 4to. 1653, of Father Raynaud. This list of brutes and in- sects, among which are a vast variety of serpents, is accom- panied by the names of the heretics designated ! Henry Fhzsermon, an Irish Jesuit, was imprisoned for his papistical designs and seditious preaching. During his con- finement he proved himself to be a great amateur of con- troversy. He said, " he felt like a hear tied to a stake, and wanted somebody to bait him." A kind office, zealously undertaken by the learned Usher, then a young man. He engaged to dispute with him once a week on the subject of antichrist ! They met several times. It appears that our hear was out-woi-ried, and declined any further dog-baiting. This spread an universal joy through the Protestants iu 406 LITERARY CONTROVERSY. Dublin. At the early period of the Reformation, Dr. Smith of Oxford abjured papistry, with the hope of retaining his professorship, but it was given to Peter Martyr. On this our Doctor recants, and ^^Tites several controversial Avorks against Peter Martyr ; the most curious part of which is the singular mode adopted of attacking others, as well as Peter Martyr. In his margin he frequently breaks out thus : " Let Hooper read this ! " — " Here, Ponet, open your eyes and see your errors ! " — " Ergo, Cox, thou art damned ! " In this manner, without expressly writing against these persons, the stirring polemic contrived to keep up a sharp bush-fighting in his margins. Such was the spirit of those times, very ditfer- ent from our own. When a modern bishop was just advanced to a mitre, his bookseller begged to re-publish a popular the- ological tract of his against another bishop, because he might now meet him on equal terms. My lord answered — " Mr. * * *, no more controversy now ! " Our good bishop re- sembled Baldwin, who from a simple monk, arrived to the honour of the see of Canterbury. 1?he successive honours successively changed his manners. Urban the Second in- scribed his brief to him in this concise description — Balduino Monastico ferventissimo, Abbati calido, Episcopo tepido, Archiepiscopo remisso ! On the subject of literary controversies, we cannot pass over the various sects of the scholastics : a volume might be compiled of their ferocious wars, which in more than one in- stance were accompanied by stones and daggers. The most memorable, on account of the extent, the violence, and dura- tion of their contests, are those of the Nominalists and the Realists. It was a most subtle question assuredly, and the world thought for a long while that their happiness depended on deciding, whetlier universals, that is genera, have a rtal essence, and exist independent of particulars, that is species : —whether, for instance, we could form an idea of asses, prior to individual asses? Roscelinus, in the eleventh century, LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 407 adopted the opinion that universals have no real existence, either before or in individuals, but are mere names and words by which the kind of individuals is expressed ; a tenet propagated by Abelard, which produced the sect of Nominal- ists. But the Realists asserted that universals existed inde- pendent of individuals, — though they were somewhat divided between the various opinions of Plato and Aristotle. Of the Realists the most famous Avere Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. The cause of the Nominalists was almost despe- rate, till Occam in the fourteenth century revived the dying embers. Louis XI. adopted the Nominalists, and the Nom- inalists flourished at large in France and Germany; but unfortunately Pope John XXIII. patronized the Realists, and throughout Italy it was dangerous for a Nominalist to open his lips. The French King wavered, and the Pope triumphed ; his majesty published an edict in 1474, in which he silenced for ever the Nominalists, and ordered their books to be fastened up in their libraries with iron chains, that they might not be read by young students ! The leaders of that sect fled into England and Germany, where they united their forces with Luther and the first Reformers. Nothing could exceed the violence with which these dis- putes were conducted. Vives himself, who witnessed the contests, says that, " when the contending parties had ex- hausted their stock of verbal abuse, they often came to blows; and it was not uncommon in these quarrels about universals, to see the combatants engaging not only with their fists, but with clubs and swords, so that many have been wounded and some killed." On this war of words and all this terrifying nonsense John of Salisbury observes, " that there had been more time con- sumed than the Ca3sars had employed in making themselves masters of the world ; that the riches of Croesus were inferior to the treasures that had been exhausted in this controvex'sy ; and that the contending parties, after having spent theii' whole lives in this single point, had neither been so happy aa 408 LITERARY CONTROVERSY. to determine it to their satisfaction, nor to find in the laby- rinths of science Avhere they had been groping any discovery that was worth the pains tliey had taken." It may be added that Ramus having attacked Aristotle, for " teaching ua chimeras," all liis scholars revolted ; the parliament put a stop to his lectures, and at length having brought the matter into a law court, he was declared " to be insolent and darinjx " — the king proscribed his woi-ks, he was ridiculed on the stage, and hissed at by his scholars. When at length, during the plague, he opened again his schools, he drew on himself a fresh stoi-m by reforming the pronunciation of the letter Q, which they then pronounced like K — Kiskis for Quisquis, and Kamkam for Quamquam. This imiovation was once more laid to his charge : a new rebellion ! and a new ejec- tion of the Anti-Aristotelian ! The brother of that Gabriel Harvey who was the friend of Spenser, and with Gabriel had been the whetstone of the town-wits of his time, distinguished himself by his wrath against the Stagyrite. After having with Gabriel predicted an earthquake, and alarmed the kingdom, which never took place (that is the earthquake, not the alarm), the wits buffeted him. Nash says of him, that " Tarlton at the theatre made jests of him, and Elderton consumed his ale-crammed nose to nothing, in bear-baiting him with whole bundles of ballads." Marlow declared him to be " an ass tit only to preach of the iron age." Stung to madness by this lively nest of hornets, he avenged himself in a very coAvardly manner — he attacked Aristotle liimself ! foi he set Aristotle with his heels upwards on the school gates at Cambridge, and Avith asses' ears on his head ! But this controversy concerning Aristotle and the school divinity was even prolonged. A professor in the College at Naples pubHshed in 1688 four volumes of peripatetic philos- ophy, to establish the principles of Aristotle. The work was exploded, and he wrote an abusive treatise under the nom de guerre of Benedetto Aletino, A man of letters, Coustantmo Grimaldi, repUed. Aletmo rejoined; he wrote letters, an LHERARY CONTROVERSY. 409 apology for the letters, and would have written more for Aristotle than Aristotle himself perhaps would have done However, Grimaldi was no ordinary antagonist, and not to be outwearied. He had not only the best of the argument, but he was resolved to tell the world so, as long as the world would listen. Whether lie killed off Father Benedictus, the first author, is not atfirmed ; but the latter died dui-ing the controversy. Grimaldi, however, afterwards pursued his ghost, and buffeted the father in liis grave. This enraged the University of Naples ; and the Jesuits, to a man, de- nounced Grimaldi to Pope Benedict XIII. and to the viceroy of Naples. On this the Pope issued a bull proliibiting the reading of Grimaldi's works, or keeping them, under pain of excommunication ; and the viceroy, more active than the bull, caused all the copies which were found in the author's house to be thrown into the sea ! The author Avith tears in his eyes beheld his expatriated volumes, hopeless that their voyage would have been successful. However, all the little family of the Grimaldi's were not drowned — for a storm arose, and happily drove ashore many of the floating copies, and these falling into charitable hands, the heretical opinions of poor Grimaldi against Aristotle and school divinity were still read by those wdio were not out-terrified by the Pope's bulls. The salted passages were still at hand, and quoted with a double zest against the Jesuits ! We now turn to writers wdiose controversy was kindled only by subjects of polite literature. The particulars form a curious picture of the taste of the age. '' There is," says Joseph Scaliger, that great critic and reviler, " an art of abuse or shxndering, of which those that are ignorant may be said to defame others much less than they show a willingness to defame." " Literary wars," says Bayle, " are sometimes as lasting as they are terrible." A disputation between two great scholars was so intei-minably violent, that it lasted tliirty years ! He humourously compares its duration to the German war which lasted as long. 410 LITERARY COXTROVERSr. Baillet, when he refuted the sentiments of a certain author, always did it without naming him ; but when he found any olxservation which he deemed commendable, he quoted his name. Bayle observes, that " this is an excess of politeness, prejudicial to that freedom which should ever exist in the republic of letters ; that it should be allowed always to name tliose whom we refute ; and that it is sufficient for this pur- pose that we banish asperity, malice, and indecency." After these preliminary observations, I shall bring forward various examples where this excellent advice is by no means regarded. Erasmus produced a dialogue, in which he ridiculed those scholars who were servile imitators of Cicero ; so servile, that they would employ no expression but what was found in the works of that writer ; every thing with them was Cicero- nianized. This dialogue is written with great humour. Julius Caesar Scaliger, the father, who was then unknown to the world, had been long looking for some occasion to distinguish himself; he now wrote a defence of Cicero, but which in fact was one continued invective against Erasmus : he there treats the latter as illiterate, a drunkard, an impostor, an apostate, a hangman, a demon hot fi-om hell ! The same Scaliger, acting on the same principle of distinguishing him- self at the cost of others, attacked Cardan's best work De Subtilitate : his criticism did not appear till seven years after (he first edition of the work, and then he obstinately stuck to that edition, though Cardan had corrected it in subsequent ones ; but this Scaliger chose, that he might have a wider field for his attack. After this, a rumour spread that Cardan had died of vexation from Julius Csesar's invincible pen ; then Scaliger pretended to feel all the regret possible for a man he had killed, and whom he now praised : however, his regret had as little foundation as his triumph ; for Cardan outlived Scaliger many years, and valued his criticisms too cheaply to have suffered them to have disturbed his quiet. All this does not exceed the Invectives of Poggius, who has LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 411 thus entitled several literary libels composed against some of his adversaries, Laiirentius Valla, Philelphus, «S:c., who re- turned the poisoned chalice to his own lips ; declamations of scurrility, obscenity, and calumny ! Sciojipius was a worthy successor of the Scaligers : his favourite expression was, that he had trodden down his ad- versary. Scioppius was a critic, as skilful as Salmasius or Scaliger, but still more learned in the language of abuse. This cynic was the Attila of authors. He boasted that he had oc- casioned the deaths of Casaubon and Scaliger. Detested and dreaded as the public scourge, Scioppius, at the close of his life, was fearful he should find no retreat in which he might be secure. The great Casaubon employs the dialect of St. Giles's in his furious attacks on the learned Dalechamps, the Latin translator of Athena^us. To this great physician he stood more deeply indebted than he chose to confess ; and to con- ceal the claims of this hterary creditor, he called out Ve- sanum ! Tnsanmn ! Tiresiam ! &c. It was the fashion of tliat day with the ferocious heroes of the literary republic, to overwhelm each other Avith invectives, and to consider that their own grandeur consisted in the magnitude of their volumes ; and their triumphs in reducing their brother giants into puny dwarfs. In science, Linnaeus had a dread of con- troversy — conqueror or conquered we cannot escape without disgrace ! Mathiolus would have been the great man of his day, had he not meddled with such matters. Who is giati- fied by "the mad Cornarus, or "the flayed Fox?" titles which Fuchsius and Cornarus, two eminent botanists, have bestowed on each other. Some who were too fond of con- troversy, as they grew wiser, have refused to take up the gauntlet. The heat and acrimony of verbal critics have exceeded description. Their stigmas and anathemas have been long known to bear no proportion to the oflences against which 412 LITERARY COXTRO\T.RSY. they have been directed. " God confound you," cried one grammarian to another, "for your theory of impersonal verbs ! " There was a long and terrible controversy for- merly, whether the Florentine dialect was to prevail over the others. The academy was put to great trouble, and the Anti-Cruscans were often on the point of annulling this su- premacy ; una mordace scritura was applied to one of these literary canons ; and in a letter of those times the following paragraph appears : — " Pescetti is preparing to give a second answer to Beni, which will not please him ; I now beheve the prophecy of Cavalier Tedeschi will be verified, and that this controversy, begun with pens, will end with poniards ! " Fabretti, an Itahan, wrote furiously against Gronovius, whom he calls Grunnovius : he compared him to aU those animals whose voice was expressed by the word Grunnire, to grunt. Gronovius was so malevolent a critic, that he was distinguished by the title of the " Grammatical Cur." When critics venture to attack the person as well as the performance of an author, I recommend the salutary proceed- ings of Huberus, the writer of an esteemed Universal His- tory. He had been so roughly handled by Perizonius, that he obliged him to make the amende honorable in a court of justice ; where, however, I fear an Enghsh jury would give the smallest damages. Certain authors may be distinguished by the title of Lit- erary BoBADiLS, or fighting authors. One of our own celebrated Avriters drew his sword on a reviewer ; and an- other, when his farce was condemned, offered to fight any one of the audience who hissed. Scudery, brother of the cele- brated Mademoiselle Scudery, was a true Parnassian bully. The first publication which brought him into notice was his edition of the works of his friend Theophile. He concludes the preface with these singular expressions — " I do not hes- itate to declare, that, amongst all the dead, and all the living, there is no person who has any thing to show that approaches the force of this vigorous genius ; but if amongst the latter, LITERARY CONTROVERSY. 4i;j any one were so extravagant as to consider that I detract from his imaginary glory, to show him that I fear as little as 1 esteem him, this is to mform him that my name is " De Scudery ." A similar rhoclomontade is that of Claude Trellon, a poetical soldier, who hegins his poems by challenging the critics ; assuring them that if any one attempts to censure him, he will only condescend to answer sword in hand. Father Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, having written against Cardinal Noris, on the monkery of St. Austin, it was deemed necessary to silence both parties. Macedo, compelled to re- linquish the pen, sent his adversary a challenge, and accord- ing to the laws of chivalry, appomted a place for meeting in the wood of Boulogne. Another edict to forbid the duel ! Macedo then murmured at his hard fate, which would not suffer him, for the sake of St. Austin, for whom he had a particular regard, to spill either his ink or his blood. Anti, pretixed to the name of the person attacked, was once a favourite title to books of Uterary controversy. With a critical review of such books Baillet has filled a quarto volume ; yet such was the abundant harvest, that he left con- siderable gleanings for posterior industry. Anti-Gronovius was a book published against Gronovius, by Kuster. Perizonius, another pugihst of literature, entered into this dispute on the subject of the ^s grave of the an- cients, to which Kuster had just adverted at the close of his volume. What was the consequence ? Di-eadful ! — Answers and rejoinders from both, in which they bespattered each other with the foulest abuse. A journalist plea:rantly blames this acrimonious controversy. He says, " To read the pam- phlets of a Perizonius and a Kuster on the ^s grave of the ancients, who would not renounce all commerce with an- tiquity ? It seems as if an Agamemnon and an Achillet: were railing at each other. Who can refrain from laughter, when one of these commentators even points his attacks at the very name of his adversary ? Accoi'ding to Kuster, the 414 LITERARY CONTROVERSY. name of Perizonius signifies a certain part of the human body. How is it possible, that with such a name he could be right concei'ning the ^s grave ? But does that of Kuster promise a better thing, since it signifies a beadle ; a man who drives dogs out of churches? — What madness is this ! " (yOrneille, like our Dryden, felt the acrimony of literary ii'ri- tation. To the critical strictures of D'Aubignac it is acknowl- edged he paid the greatest attention, for, after this critic's Pratique du Theatre appeared, his tragedies were more art- fully conducted. But instead of mentioning the critic with due praise, he preserved an ungrateful silence. This occa- sioned a quarrel between the poet and the critic, in which the former exhaled his bile in several abusive epigrams, which have, fortunately for his credit, not been preserved in his works. The lively Voltaire could not resist the chann of abusing his adversaries. We may smile when he calls a blockhead, a blockhead ; a dotard, a dotard ; but when he attacks, for a difference of opinion, the morals of another man, our sensi- bility is alarmed. A higher tribunal than that of criticism is to decide on the actions of men. There is a certain disguised malice, which some ■writers have most unfaii-ly employed in characterizing a contemporary. Bui'net called Prior, one Prior. In Bishop Parker's History of his Own Times, an innocent reader may start at seeing the celebrated Marvell described as an outcast of society ; an infamous libeller ; and one whose talents were even more despicable than his person. To such lengths did the hati'ed of party, united with personal rancour, carry this bishop, who was himself the worst of time-servers. He was, however, amply repaid by the keen wit of Marvell in ' The Rehearsal Transposed,' wliich may still be read with delight, as an ad- mirable effusion of banter, wit, and satire. Le Clerc, a cool ponderous Greek critic, quarrelled with Boileau about a pas- sage in Longinus, and several years afterwards, in revising Moreri's Dictionary, gave a short sarcastic notice of the poet's LITERARY BLUNDERS. 415 brother ; in which he calls him the elder brother of him who has written the book entitled '■'■Satires of Mr. Boileuu Des-- preaux I " — the works of the modern Horace which were then delighting Europe, he calls, with simple impudence, '' a book entitled Satires ! " The works of Homer produced a controversy, both long and virulent, amongst the wits of France ; this literary (|\iar- rel is of some note in the annals of literature, since it has produced two valuable books; La Motte's " Reflexions sur la Critique," and Madame Dacier's " Des Causes de la Corrup- tion du Gout." La Motte wrote with feminine delicacy, and Madame Dacier like a University pedant. "At length, by the efforts of Valincour, the friend of art, of artists, and of peace, the contest was terminated." Both parties were for- midable in number, and to each he made remonstrances, and applied reproaches. La Motte and Madame Dacier, the op- posite leaders, were convinced by his arguments, made recip- rocal concessions, and concluded a peace. The treaty was formally ratified at a dinner, given on the occasion by a Madame De Stael, who represented " Neuti-ality." Liba- tions were poured to the memory of old Homer, and the parties were reconciled. LITERARY BLUNDERS. When Dante published his " Inferno," the simplicity of the age accepted it as a true narrative of his descent into hell. "When the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, was first published, it occasioned a pleasant mistake. This political romance rep- resents a perfect, but visionary republic, in an island supposed to have been newly discovered in America. "As this was the age of discovery," says Granger, " the learned Ludieus, and others, took it for a genuine history ; and considered it as 416 LITERARY BLUNDERS. highly expedient, that missionaries should be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity." It was a long while after publication that many readers were convinced that Gullivei''s Travels were fictitious. But the most singular blunder M^as produced by the ingen- ious " Hermippus Redivivus " of Dr. Campbell, a curious ban- ter on the hermetic pliilosophy, and the universal medicine ; but the grave h'ony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. His notion of the art of prolonging life, by inhaling the breath of young women, was eagerly credited. A physician, who himself had composed a treatise on health, was so influenced by it, that he actually took lodgings at a female boarding-school, that he might never be without a constant supply of the breath of young ladies. Mr. Thicknesse seriously adopted the project. Dr. Kippis acknowledged that after he had read the work in his youth, the reasonings and the facts left him several days in a kind of fairy land. I have a copy with manuscript notes by a learned physician, wdio seems to have had no doubts of its veracity. After all, the intention of the work was long doubtful ; till Dr. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere jeu-d'esprit ; that Bayle was considered as standing without a rival in the art of treating at large a difficult subject, with- out discovering to which side his own sentiments leaned: Campbell had read more uncommon books than most men, and wished to rival Bayle, and at the same time to give many curious matters little known. Palavicini, in his History of the Council of Trent, to con- fer an honour on M. Lansac, ambassador of Charles IX. to that council, bestows on him a collar of the order of Saint Esprit ; but which order was not instituted till several years afterwards by Heniy III. A similar voluntary blunder is that of Surita, in his Annales de la Corona de Aragon. This writer represents, in the battles he describes, many persons who were not present ; and tliis, merely to confer honour ou some particular families. LITERARY BLUNDERS. 417 Fabiani, quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the name of the author the words, found at the end of the title-page, Enrichi de deux Listes ; that is, " Enriched with two lists : " on this he observes, " that Mr. Enriched with two lists has not failed to do that justice to Ciampini which he merited." The abridgers of Gesner's Bibliotheca ascribe the romance of Amadis to one Acnerdo Olvido ; Remembrance, Oblivion ; mistaking the French translator's Spanish motto on the title-page, for the name of the author. D'Aquin, the French king's physician, in his Memoir on the Preparation of Bark, takes Manfinsa, which is the title of the Appendix to the History of Plants, by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who, he says, is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name. Lord Bohngbroke imagined, that in those famous verses, beginning with Excudent alii, &c., Virgil attributed to the Romans the glory of having surpassed the Greeks in histori- cal composition : according to his idea, those Roman historians whom Virgil preferred to the Grecians were Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. But Virgil died before Livy had written his history, or Tacitus was born. An honest friar, who compiled a church history, has placed m the class of ecclesiastical writers Guarini, the Italian poet, on the faith of the title of his celebrated amorous pastoral, 11 Pastor Fido, " The Faithful Shepherd ; " our good father imagmed that the character of a curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work. A blunder has been recorded of the monks in the dark ages, which was likely enough to happen when their igno- rance was so dense. A rector of a parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the church, quoted this authority from St. Peter — Paveant illi, non paveam ego ; which he con- strued. They are to pave the church, not I. This was allowed to be good law by a judge, him?elf an ecclesiastic too! One of the grossest literary blunders of modern times is that of the late Gilbert Wakefield, in his edition of Pope. VOL. I 27 418 LITERARY BLUNDERS. He there takes the well-known " Song by a Person of Quali- ty," which is a piece of ridicule on the glittering tuneful non- sense of certain poets, as a serious composition. In a most copious commentary, he proves that every line seems uncon- nected with its brothers, and that the whole reflects disgrace on its author ! A circumstance which too evidently shows how necessary the knowledge of modern literary history is to a modern commentator, and that those who are pro- found in verbal Greek are not the best critics on Enghsb writei's. The Abbe Bizot, the author of the medalhc history of Hoi' land, fell into a droll mistake. There is a medal, struck when Philip II. set forth his invincible Armada, on which are rep- resented the King of Spain, the P'mperor, the Pope, Elec- tors, Cardinals, &c., with their eyes covered with a bandage, and bearing for inscription tliis fine verse of Lucretius : — caecas hominum menteis ! pectora caeca ! The Abb^, prepossessed with the prejudice that a nation per- secuted by the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult, did not examine with suflScient care the ends of the bandages which covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented on tins medal : he rashly took them for asses' ears, and as such they are engraved ! Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His holiness, in the volumi- nous catalosfue of his saints, was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this in- scription : — S. VIAR. An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar, by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient sur- veyor of the roads ; and he read their saintship thus : — LITERARY BLUNDERS. 419 PR^FECTUS VIARUM. Maffei, in his comparison between Medals and Inscriptions, detects a literary blunder in Spon, who, meeting with this insci'iption, Maximo VI Consule takes the letters VI for numerals, which occasions a strange anachronism. They are only contractions of Viro Ulustri —VI. As absurd a blunder was this of Dr. Stukeley on the coins of Carausius ; finding a battered one with a defaced inscrip- tion of FORTVNA AVG. he read it ORIVNA AVG. And sagaciously interpreting this to be the wife of Carausius, makes a new pei'sonage start up in history ; he contrives even to give some theoretical Memoirs of the August Oriuna ! Father Sirmond was of opinion that St. Ursula and her eleven thousand Virgins were all created out of a blunder. In some ancient MS. they found St. Ursula et Undecimilla V. M. meaning St. Ursula and Undecimilla, Virgin Martyrs ; imagining that Undecimilla Nvith the V. and M. which fol- lowed, was an abbreviation for Undecem Millia Martyrum Virginum, they made out of Two Virgins the whole Eleven Thousand ! Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us, that its story was taken from Cinthio's Novels, Dec. 8, Nov. 5. That is. Decade 8, Novel 5. The critical Warburton, in his edition of Shakspeare, puts the words in full length thus, December 8, November 5. When the fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the literary world, Meibomius, an erudit of Lubeck, read in a letter from another learned scholar from P>ologna, " We have here an entire Petronius ; I saw it with mine own eyes, 420 LITERARY BLUNDERS. and with admiration." Meibomius in post-haste is on the road, arrives at Bologna, and immediately inquires for the librarian Cappoui. He inquires if it were true that they had at Bologna cm entiie Petronivs ? Capponi assures him that it was a thing which had long been public. " Can I see this Petronius ? Let me examine it ! " — " Certainly," replies Capponi, and leads our erudit of Lubeck to the church where reposes the body of St. Petronius. Meibomius bites his lips, calls for his chaise, and takes his flight. A French translator, when he came to a passage of Swift, in which it is said that the Duke of Marlborough broke an officer ; not being acquainted with this Anghci»m, he trans- lated it roue, broke on a wheel ! Cibber's play of " Love's last Shift " was entitled " La Derniere Chemise de V Amour." A" French writer of Con- greve's life has taken his Mourning for a Morning Bride, and translated it V Epouse du Matin. Sir John Pringle mentions his having cured a soldier by the use of two quarts of Dog and Duck water daily : a French translator specifies it as an excellent broth made of a duck and a dog! In a recent catalogue compiled by a French writer of Works on Natural History, he has inserted the well-known " Essay on Irish Balls " by the Edgew^orths. The proof, if it required any, that a Frenchman cannot understand the idiomatic style of Shakspeare appears in a French translator, who prided himself on giving a verbal translation of our great poet, not approving of Le Tourneur's paraphrastical version. He found in the celebrated speech of Northumberland in Henry IV. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so icoe-beyone — which he renders " Ainsi douleur ! va-t'en ! " The Abbe Gregoire affords another striking proof of the errors to which foreigners are liable when they decide on the language and custojns of another country. The Abbe, in the excess of his philanthropy, to show to what dishonourable LITERARY BLUNDERS. 421 offices human nature is degraded, acquaints us that at London he observed a sign-board, prochiiming the master as tuevr des punaises de sd majeste ! Bug-destroyer to his majesty ! This is no doubt the honest Mr. Tiffin, in the Strand ; and the idea which must have occurred to the good Abbe was, that Lis majesty's bugs were hunted by the said destroyer, and taken by hand — and thus human nature was degraded ! A French writer translates the Latin title of a treatise of Philo-Judoeus Omnis bonus liber est, Every good man is a free man, by Tout livre est bon. It was well for him, ob- serves Jortin, that he did not Hve within the reach of the Inquisition which might have taken this as a reflection on the Index Expurgatorius. An English translator turned " Dieu defend Tadultere '* into " God defends adultery." — Guthrie, in his translation of Du Halde, has " the tAventy-sixth day of the new moon." The whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days. The blunder arose from his mistaking the word neuvieme (ninth) for nouvelle or neuve (new). The facetious Tom Brown committed a strange blunder in his translation of Gelli's Circe. The word Starne, not aware of its signification, he boldly rendered stares, probably from the similitude of sound ; the succeeding translator more cor- rectly discovered Starne to be red-legged partridges ! In Charles II.'s reign a new collect was drawn, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title, that gave great offence, and occasioned great raillery. He was styled our most religious king. Whatever the signification of religious might be in the Latin word, as importing the sacredness of the king's person, yet in the English language it bore a sig- nification that Avas no way applicable to the king. And he as asked by his familiar courtiers, what must the nation think when they heard him prayed for as their inost religious king ? — Literary blunders of this nature are frequently dis- covered in the versions of good classical scholars, who would make the English servilely bend to the Latin and Greek. 422 LITERARY BLUNDERS. Even Milton has been justly censured for his free use of Latinisms and Grecisms. The blunders of modem antiquaries on sepulchral monu- ments are numerous. One mistakes a lion at a knight's feet for a water-curled dog ; another could not distinguish censers in the hands of angels from fishing-nets ; ttvo angels at a ladj's feet were counted as her two cherub-like babes ; and another has mistaken a leopard and a hedgehog for a cat and a rat ! In some of these cases, are the antiquaries or the sculptors most lo be blamed ? A hterary blunder of Thomas "Warton is a specimen of the manner in wliich a man of genius may continue to blunder with infinite ingenuity. In an old romance he finds these lines, describing the duel of Saladin with Richard Coeur de Lion : — A Faucon brode in hande he bare, For he thought he wolde thare Have slayne Richard. He imagines this Faucon brode means a falcon bird, or a hawk, and that Saladin is represented with tliis bird on his fist to express his contempt of his adversary. He supports his conjecture by noticing a Gothic picture, supposed to be the subject of this duel, and also some old tapestry of heroes on horseback with hawks on their fists ; he plunges into feudal times, when no gentlemen appeared on horseback without his hawk. After all this curious erudition, the rough but skilful Kitson inhumanly triumphed by dissolving the magical fancies of the more elegant Warton, by explaining a Faucon brode to be nothing more than a broad faulc/non, which, in a duel, was certainly more useful than a bird. The editor of the private reprint of Hentzner, on that writer's tradition respecting " The Kings of Denmark who reigned in England " buried in the Temple Church, metamorphosed the two Inns of Court, Gray's Inn and Lincoln s Inn, into the names of the Danish Kings, Gresin and Lyconin. Bayle supposes that MarceUus Palingenius, who wrote the A LITERARY WIFE. 423 poem entitled the Zodiac, the twelve books bearing the names of the signs, from this circumstance assumed the title of Poeta Stellalus. liut it appears that this writer was an Italian and a native of SteUada, a town in the Ferrarese. It is probable that his birthplace originally produced the conceit of the title of his poem : it is a curious instance how a criti- cal conjecture may be led astray by its own ingenuity, when ignorant of the real iact. A LITERARY WIFE. JIarriage is such a rabble rout, That those that are out, would fain get in; And those that are in, would fain get out. Chaucer. Having examined some literary blunders, we will now proceed to the subject of a literary wife, which may happen to prove one. A learned lady is to the taste of few. It is however matter of surprise, that several literary men should have felt such a want of taste in respect to " their soul's far dearer part," as Hector calls his Andromache. The wives of many men of letters have been dissolute, ill-humoured, slatternly, and have run into all the frivohties of the age. The wife of the learned Budaius was of a different char- acter. How delightful is it when the mind of the female is so hap- pily disposed, and so richly cultivated, as to participate in the literary avocations of her husband ! It is then truly that the inlercourse of the sexes becomes the most refined pleasure. "What delight, for instance, must the great Budanis have tasted, even in those works which must have been for others a most dreadful labour ! His wife left him nothing to desire. The frequent companion of his studies, she brought him the books he required to his desk ; she collated passages, and 424 A LITERARY WIFE. transcribed quotations ; the same genius, the same inchnalion, and the same ardour for literature, eminently appeared in those two fortunate persons. Far from withdrawing her hus- band from his studies, she was sedulous to animate him when he languished. Ever at his side, and ever assiduous ; ever with some useful book in her hand, she acknowledged herself to be a most happy woman. Yet she did not neglect the education of eleven children. She and Budteus shared in the mutual cares they owed their progeny. Budteus was not insensible of his singular felicity. In one of his letters, he represents himself as married to two ladies ; one of whom gave him boys and girls, the other was Philosophy, who produced books. He says that in his twelve first years, Philosophy had been less fruitful than marriage ; he had produced less books than children ; he had laboured more corporally than intellectually ; but he hoped to make more books than men. " The soul (says he) will be productive in its turn ; it will rise on the ruins of the body ; a prolific virtue is not given at the same time to the bodily organs and the pen." The lady of Evelyn designed herself the frontispiece to his translation of Lucretius. She felt the same passion in her own breast which animated her husband's, who has written with such various ingenuity. Of Baron Haller it is recorded that he inspired his wife and family with a taste for his dif- ferent pm-suits. They were usually employed in assisting his literary occupations ; they transcribed manuscripts, consulted authors, gathered plants, and designed and coloured under his eye. What a delightful fomily picture has the younger Pliny given posterity in his letters ! Of Calphurnia, his mfe, he says, " Her affection to me has given her a turn to books ; and my compositions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender solicitude is she when I am entering upon any cause ! How kindly does she rejoice with me when it is over I While I am pleading, she places persons to inform her from time to time how I am heard, what applauses I A LITERARY WIFE. 425 receive, and what success attends the cause. "When at anj time I recite my works, she conceals herself behind some curtain, and with secret rapture enjoys ray praises. She sings my verses to her lyre, with no other master but love, the best instructor, for her guide. Her passion will increase with our days, for it is not my youth nor my person, which time gradually impaii's, but my reputation and my glory, of which she is enamoured." On the subject of a literary wife, I must introduce to the acquaintance of the reader Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle. She is known, at least by her name, as a voluminous writer ; for she extended her literary productions to the number of twelve folio volumes. Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits ; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordi- nary genius. The Connoisseur has quoted her poems, and her verses have been imitated by Milton. The duke, her husband, was also an author ; his book on horsemanship still preserves his name. He has likewise written comedies, and his contemporaries have not been penu- rious in their eulogiums. It is true he was a duke. Shad- well says of him, " That he was the greatest master of wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of humour that ever he knew."' The life of the duke is written " by the hand of his incomparable duchess." It was pubUshed in his lifetime. This curious piece of biogra- phy is a folio of 1 97 pages, and is entitled " The Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince, William Caven- dish." His titles then follow : — " Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, his wife. London, 1667." This Life is dedi- cated to Charles the Second ; and there is also prefixed a copious epistle to her husband the duke. In this epistle the character of our Literary Wife is de- scribed with all its peculiarities. " Certainly, my lord, you have had as many enemies and 426 A LITER AKY WIFE. as many friends as ever any one particular person had ; nor do I so much wonder at it, since I, a woman, cannot be ex- empt from the malice and aspersions of spiteful tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some denying me to be the true authoress of them ; for your grace remembers well, that those books I put out first to the judgment of this censorious age were accounted not to be written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ and published them in my name ; by which your lordship was moved to prefix an epis- tle before one of them in my vindication, wherein you assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written and printed in my name was my own ; and I have also made known that your lordship was my only tutor, in declaring to me what you had found and observed by your own experience ; for I being young when your lordship married me, could not have much knowledge of the world ; but it pleased God to command his servant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius, even from my birth ; for I did write some books in that kind before I was twelve years of age, which for want of good method and order I would never di- vuljie. But though the world would not believe that those conceptions and fancies which I writ were my own, but tran- scended my capacity, yet they found fault, that they were defective for want of learning, and on the other side, they said I had pluckt feathers out of the universities ; which was a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my lord, I confess that for want of scholarship, I could not express myself so well as otherwise I might have done in those philosophical writings I published first ; but after I was returned with your lordship into my native country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the reachng of philosophical authors, on purpose to learn those names and words of art that are used in schools ; which at first were so hard to me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to guess at the sense of them by the whole context, and so writ them down, as I found them in those authors ; at which my readers did won- A LITERARY WIFE. 42? der, and thought it impossible that a woman could have so much learning and understanding in terms of art and scholas- tical expressions ; so that I and my books are like the old apologue mentioned in ^sop, of a father and his son who rid on an ass." Here follows a long narrative of this fable, which she apitlies to herself in these words — " The old man seeing he cxjuld not please mankind in any manner, and having re- ceived so many blemishes and aspersions for the sake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown him when he came to the next bridge. But I am not so passionate to burn my writ- ings for the various humours of mankind, and for their find- ing fault ; since there is nothing in this world, be it the no- blest and most commendable action whatsoever, tliat shall escape blameless. As for my being the true and only auth- oress of them, your lordship knows best ; and my attending servants are witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies, and speculations, to assist me ; and as soon as I set them down I send them to those that are to transcribe them, and fit them for the press ; whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them such as only could write a good hand, but neither understood orthography, nor had any learn- ing, (I being then in banishment, with your lordship, and not able to maintain learned secretaries,) which hath been a great disadvantage to my poor works, and the cause that they have been printed so false and so full of errors ; for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and true writing, I did many times not peruse the copies that were transcribed, lest they should disturb my following conceptions ; by which neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which, yet I hope, learned and impartial men will soon rectify, and look more upon the sense than carp at woi-ds. I have been a student even from childhood ; and since I have been your lordship's wife I have lived for the most part a strict and retired life, as is best known to your lordship ; and therefore my censurers cannot know much of me, since they have little or 428 A LITERARY WIFE. no iicquaintance with me. 'Tis true I have been a traveller both before and after I was married to your lordship, and some times shown myself at your lordship's command in pub- lic places or assemblies, but yet I converse with few. In- deed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this age, but am rather proud of them ; for it shows that my actions are more than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, it is better to be envied than pitied ; for I know well that it is merely out of spite and mahce, whereof this present age is so full that none can escape them, and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble, and heroic actions, as well as they do mine ; though yours have been of war and fighting, mine of contemplating and writing : yours were performed publicly in the field, mine privately in my closet ; yours had many thousand eye-^\dtnesses ; mine none but my waiting- maids. But the great God, that hithei'to bless'd both your grace and me, will, I question not, preserve both our fames to after-ages. " Your grace's honest wife, " and humble servant, " M. Newcastle." The last portion of this life, which consists of the observa- tions and good things which she had gathered from the con- versations of her husband, forms an excellent Ana ; and shows that when Lord Orford, in his " Catalogue of Noble Authors," says, that " this stately poetic couple was a picture of foolish nobility," he writes, as he does too often, with ex- treme levity. But we must now attend to the reverse of our medal. Many chagrins may corrode the nuptial state of literary men. Females who, prompted by vanity, but not by taste, unite themselves to scholars, must ever complain of neglect. The inexhaustible occupations of a library will only present to such a most dreary solitude. Such a lady declared of her learned husband, that she was more jealous of his books than A LITERARY WIFE. 429 his mistresses. It was probably while Glover was compos- ing his " Leonidas," that his lady avenged herself for this Homeric inattention to her, and took her flight with a lover. It was peculiar to the learned Dacier to be united to a woman, his equal in erudition and his superior in taste. When she wrote in the aibum of a German traveller a verse from Sophocles as an apology for her unwillingness to place herself among his learned friends, that " Silence is the fe- male's ornament," it was a trait of her modesty. The learned Pasquier was coupled to a female of a different character, since he tells us in one of his Epigrams that to manage the vociferations of his lady, he was compelled himself to become a vociferator. — " Unfortunate wretch that I am, I who am a lover of universal peace ! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war." Sir Thomas More was united to a woman of the harshest temper and the most sordid manners. To soften the morose- ness of her disposition, " he persuaded her to play on the lute, viol, and other instruments, every day." Whether it was that she had no ear for music, she herself never became harmonious as the instrument she touched. All these ladies may be considered as rather too alert in thought, and too spirited in action ; but a tame cuckoo bird who is always re- peating the same note must be very fatiguing. The lady of Samuel Clarke, the great compiler of books in 1 680, whose name was anagrammatized to " such all cream,'^ alluding to his indefatigable labours in sucking all the cream of every other author, without having any cream himself, is described by her husband as entertaining the most sublime conceptions of his illustrious compilations. This appears by her behaviour. He says, " that she never rose from table without making him a curtesy, nor drank to him without bowing, and that his vvord was a law to her." I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that in 1590 the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury on the subject of his liv- 430 A LITERARY WIFE. ing separate from his countess, uses as one of his arguments for their union the following cui'ious one, which surely shows the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of religion. " But some will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that th(} Conntesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow com- pany. Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so ; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of sep- aration between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe ; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe in some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the worlde, and everee man hath her : and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another argument as cogent, and which would in those times be allowed as something , the name of his lordship, Shrewshury, would have afforded a consolatory pun! The entertaining Marville says that the generality of ladies married to literary men are so vain of the abilities and merit of their husbands, that they are frequently insufferable. The wife of Barclay, author of " The Argenis," considered herself as the wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death ; for Cardinal Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she de- molished his monument, brought home his bust, and declared that the ashes of so great a genius as her husband should never be placed beside a pedagogue. Salmasius's wife was a termagant ; Christina said she ad- mired his patience more than his erudition. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband the most A LITERARY WIFE. 431 learned of all the nobles, and the most noble of all the learned. Our good lady always joined the learned con- ferences which he held in his study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of majesty. Salinasius was mild in conversation, but the reverse in his writings, for our proud Xantippe considered him as acting beneath himself if he did not magisterially call every one names ! The wife of Rohault, when her husband gave lectures en the philosophy of Descartes, used to seat herself on these days at the door, and refused admittance to every one shabbily dressed, or wdio did not discover a genteel air. So convinced was she that, to be worthy of hearing the lectures of her husband, it was proper to appear fashion- able. In vain our good lecturer exhausted himself in telling her, that fortune does not always give fine clothes to phi- losophers. The ladies of Albert Durer and Berghem were both shrews. The wife of Durer compelled that great genius to the hourly drudgery of his profession, merely to gratify her own sordid passion : in despair, Albert ran away from his Tisiphone ; she wheedled him back, and not long after- wards this great artist fell a \'ictim to her furious disposition. Bershem's wife would never allow that excellent artist to quit his occupations ; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her ; ever and anon she roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem that he was not napping. ^Han had an aversion to the married state. Sigoiiius, a learned and well kno\\Ti scholar, would never marry, and alleged no inelegant reason ; " Minerva and Venus could not live together." Matrimony has been considered by some writers as a con- dition not so well suited to the circumstances of philosophers and men of learning. There is a little tract which professes 453 A LITERARY WIFE. to investigate the subject. It has for title, De Matrimonio Literati, an coelibem esse, an vero nubere conveniat, i. e., of the Marriage of a Man of Letters, with an inquiry whether it is most proper for liim to continue a bachelor, or to marry ? The author alleges the great merit of some women ; par- ticularly that of Gonzaga the consort of Montefeltro, duke of Urbino ; a lady of such distinguished accomphshments, that Peter Bembus said, none but a stupid man would not prefer one of her conversations to all the formal meetings and disputations of the philosophers. The ladies perhaps will be surprised to find that it is a question among the learned. Whether they ought to 7narry? and will think it an unaccountable property of learning that it should lay the professors of it under an obligation to dis- regard the sex. But it is very questionable whether, in return for this want of complaisance in them, the generality of ladies would not prefer the beau, and the man of fashion. However, let there be Gonzagas, they will find converts enough to their charms. The sentiments of Sir Thomas BroAvne on the consequences of marriage are very curious, in the second part of his Re- ligio Medici, sect. 9. When he wrote that work, he said, " I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions, who never marry twice." He calls woman " the rib and crooked piece of man." He adds, " I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to procreate the world without this trivial and vulgar way." He means the union of sexes, which he de- clares, " is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life ; nor is there any thing that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and un- worthy piece of folly he hath committed." He afterwards declares he is not averse to that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful : " I could look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a A LITERARY WIFE. 433 horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there is in beauty, " and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter than the sound of an instrument." Such were his sentiments when youtliful, and residing at Leyden ; Dutch philosophy had at first chilled liis passion ; it is probable that pas.^ion afterwards infiamed his philosophy — for he married, and had sons and daughters ! Dr. Cocchi, a modern Italian writer, but apparently a cynic as old as Diogenes, has taken the pains of composing a treatise on the present subject enough to terrify the boldest Bachelor of Arts ! He has conjured up every chimera against the marriage of a literary man. He seems, however, to have drawn his disgusting portrait from his own country ; and the chaste beauty of Britain only looks the more lovely beside this Florentine wife. I shall not retain the cynicism which has coloured such revolting features. "When at length the doctor finds a woman as all women ought to be, he opens a new spring of misfor- tunes wliich must attend her husband. He dreads one of the probable consequences of matrimony — progeny, in which we must maintain the children w'e beget 1 He thinks the father gains nothing in his old age from the tender offices admin- istered by his own children : he asserts these are much better performed by menials and sti-angers 1 The more children he has, the less he can afford to have servants ! The mainte- nance of his chikh-en will greatly diminish his property ! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you become connected with the relations of the w^fe. The en- vious and ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty or their pride, all disturb the un- happy sage who falls into the trap of connubial fehcity ! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to remember his " additional expenses !•" Dr. Cocchi seems to have thought that a human being is only to live for him- self; he had neither a heart to feel, a head to conceive, nor VOL. I. 28 434 DEDICATIONS. a pen that could have written one harmonious period, or one beautiful image ! Bayle, in his article Raphelengius, note B, gives a singular specimen of logical subtlety, in " a reflection on the consequence of marriage." This learned man was imagined to have died of grief for having lost his wife, and passed three years in protracted despair. What therefore must we think of an unhappy marriage, since a happy one is exposed to such evils ? He then shows that an unhappy marriage is attended by beneficial consequences to the sur- vivor. In this dilemma, in the one case, the husband lives afraid his wife will die, in the other that she will not ! If you love her, you will always be afraid of losing her ; if you do not love her, you will always be afraid of not losing her. Our satirical celibataire is gored by the horns of the dilemma he has conjured up. James Petiver, a famous botanist, then a bachelor, the friend of Sir Hans Sloane, in an album signs his name with this designation : — " From the Goat tavern in the Strand, London, Nov. 27. In the 34th year of mj freedom, A.D. 1697." DEDICATIONS. Some authors excelled in this species of literary artifice. The Italian Doni dedicated each of his letters in a book called La Llbraria, to persons whose name began with the first letter of the epistle, and dedicated the whole collection in another epistle ; so that the book, which only consisted of forty-five pages, Mas dedicated to above twenty persons. This is carrying literary mendicity pretty high. Politi, the editor of the Martyr ologium Romamim, published at Rome in 1751, has improved on the idea of Doni; for to the 3G5 days of the year of this Martyrology he has prefixed to each an epistle dedicatory. It is fortmiate to have a large circle of DEDICATIONS. 435 acquaintance, though they should not be worthy of being saints. Galland, the translator of the Arabian Nights, pre- fixed a dedication to each tale -which he gave ; had he fin- ished the " one thousand and one," he would have surpassed even the iMartvrologist. Mademoiselle Scudery tells a remarkable expedient of an ingenious trader in this line — One Rangouze made a collec- tion of letters which he printed without numbering them. By this means the bookbinder put that letter which the author ordered him first ; so that all the persons to whom he presented this book, seeing their names at the head, consid- ered they had received a particular compliment. An Itahan physician, having written on Hippocrates's Aphorisms, dedi- cated each book of his Commentaries to one of his friends, and the index to another ! More than one of our own authors have dedications in the same spirit. It was an expedient to procure dedicatory fees : for publishing books by subscription was an art then undis- covered. One prefixed a different dedication to a certain number of printed copies, and addressed them to every great man he knew, who he thought relished a morsel of fiattery, and would pay handsomely for a coarse luxury. Sir Bal- thazar Gerbier, in his " Counsel to Builders," has made up half the woi-k with forty-two dedications, which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez ; but in these dedications Perez scatters a heap of curious things, for he was a very universal genius. Perez, once secretary of state to Philip II. of Spain, dedicates his " Obras," first to " Nuestro sanc- ti?sirao Padre," and "Al Sacro CoUegio," then follows one to " Henry IV." and then one still more embracing, "A Todos." Fuller, in his " Church History," has with admirable contri- vance introduced twelve title-pages, besides the general one, and as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty of those by inscriptions which are addressed to his benefactors ; a circumstance which Ileylin in his severity did not overlook ; for " making liis work bigger by forty sheets al 436 DEDICATIONS. the least ; and he was so ambitious of the number of his pa- trons, that having but four leaves at the end of his History, he discovers a particular benefactress to inscribe them to ! " This unlucky lady, the patroness of four leaves, Heylin com- pares to Roscius Regulus, who accepted the consular dignity for that part of the day on which Cecma by a decree of the senate was degraded from it, which occasioned Regulus to he ridicu,'ed by the people all his life after, as the consul of half a day. The price for the dedication of a play was at length fixed, from five to ten guineas from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose to twenty ; but sometimes a bargain was to be stx-uck when the author and the play were alike indifferent. Sometimes the party haggled about the price, or the statue while stepping into his niche would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Mot- teux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, actually composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the apparent author by subscribing it Avith his name. This circumstance was so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a satiiical dialogue between Motteux and his patron Heveningham. The patron, in his zeal to omit no possibles distinction that might attach to him, had given one circumstance which no one but himself could have known. Patron. I must confess I was to blame, That one particular to name; The rest could never have been known / made the style so like thy oum. Poet. I beg your pardon, Sir, for tliat. Patron. Why d e what would you be at? I icfrit bekno myself, you sot ! Avoiding figures, tropes, what not ; DEDICATIONS. 437 For fear I should my fancy raise Above Uie Itvtl of Uty jdays ! "Warton notices the common practice, about the reign of Elizabt-'tli, of an author's dedicating a work at once to a num- ber ot" the nobility. Chapman's Translation of Homer has sixteen sonnets addressed to lords and ladies. Henry Lock, in a collection of two hundi-ed reli";ious sonnets, mingles with euch heavenly works the terrestrial composition of a number of sonnets to his noble patrons ; and not to multiply more instances, our great poet Spenser, in compliance with this disgraceful custom, or rather in obedience to the estabUshed tyranny of patronage, has prefixed to the Faery Queene fifteen of these adulatory pieces, which in every respect are the meanest of his compositions. At tliis period all men, as well as writers, looked up to the peers, as on beings on whose smiles or frowns all sublunary good and evil depended. At a much later period, Elkanah Settle sent copies round to the chief party, for he wrote for both parties, accompanied by ad- dresses to extort pecuniary presents in return. He had lat- terly one standard Elegy, and one Epithalamium, printed off with blanks, which by ingeniously filling up with the printed names of any great person who died or was married, no one who was going out of life or was entering into it could pass scot-free. One of the most singular anecdotes respecting Dedica- tions in English bibliography, is that of the Polyglot bible of Dr. Castell. Cromwell, much to his honour, patronized that great labour, and allowed the paper to be imported free of all duties, both of excise and custom. It was published under the protectorate, but many copies had not been disposed of ere Charles II. ascended the throne. Dr. Castell had dedicated the work gratefully to Oliver, by mentioning him with peculiar respect in the preface, but he wavered with Richard Cromwell. At the Restoration, he cancelled the last two leaves, and supphed their places with three others, whicli softened down the republican strains, and blotted 438 DEDICATIONS. Oliver's name out of the book of life ! The differences in what are now called the republican and the loijal copies have amused the curious collectors ; and the foi-mer being very scarce, are most sought after. I have seen the republican. In the loyal copies the patrons of the work are mentioned, but their titles are essentially changed ; Serenissimus, Jllustrissi- mus, and Honoratissimus, were epithets that dared not show themselves under the levelling influence of the great fanatic republican. It is a curious literary folly, not of an individual but of the Spanish nation, who, when the laws of Castile were reduced into a code under the reign of Alfonso X. surnamed the Wise, divided the work into seven volumes : that they might be dedicated to the seven letters which formed the name of his majesty ' Never was a gigantic baby of adulation so crammed with the soft pap of Dedications as Cardinal Richelieu. French flattery even exceeded itself. — Among the vast number of very extraordinary dedications to this man, in which the Di- vinity itself is disrobed of its attributes to bestow them on this miserable creature of vanity, I suspect that even the following one is not the most blasphemous he received. "Who has seen your face without being seized by those softened terrors which made the prophet shudder when God showed the beams of his glory ! But as he whom they dared not to approach in the burning bush, and in the noise of thunders, appeared to them sometmies in the freshness of the zephyrs, so the softness of your august countenance dissipates at the same time, and changes into dew the small vapours which cover its majesty." One of these herd of dedicators, after the death of Richelieu, suppressed in a second edition his hyperbolical panegyric, and, as a punishment to himself, dedicated the work to Jesus Christ ! The same taste characterizes our own dedications in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. The great Dryden has carried it to an excessive height ; and nothing is more usual PHILOSOPfflCAL DESCRIPTIVE POEMS. 4^9 than lo compare the patron with the Dimnily — and at times a fair inference may be drawn that the fonner was more in the author's mind than God himself! A Welsli bishop made an apohgii to James I. for preferring the Deity -to his Majesty ! Dryden's extravagant dedications were the vices of the time more than of the man ; they were loaded with flattery, and no disgrace was annexed to such an exercise of men's talents ; the contest being who should go farthest in the most graceful way, and with the best turns of expression. An ingenious dedication was contrived by Sir Simon Degge, who dedicated " the Parson's Counsellor " to Woods, Bishop of Lichfield, with this intention. Degge highly complimented the Bishop on having most nobly restored the church, which had been demolished in the civil wars, and was rebuilt but left unfinished by Bishop Hacket. At the time he wrote the dedication, Woods had not turned a single stone, and it is said, that much against his will he did something, from having >)een so publicly reminded of it by this ironical dedication PHILOSOPHICAL DESCRIPTIVE POEMS. The " Botanic Garden " once appeared to open a new route through the trodden groves of Parnassus. The poet, to a prodigality of Imagination, united all the minute accu- racy of Science. It is a highly repolished labour, and was in the mind and in the hand of its author for twenty years be- fore its first publication. The excessive polish of the verse has appeared too high to be endured throughout a long composi- tion ; it is certain that, in poems of length, a versification, which is not too florid for lyrical composition, will weaiy by its brilliance. Darwin, inasmuch as a rich philosophical fancy constitutes a j)oet, possesses the entire art of poetry ; no one hiis carried the curious mechanism of verse and the artificial magic of poetical diction to a higher perfection. His volcanic 440 PmLOSOPHICAL DESCRIPTIVE POEMS. head flamed with imagination, but his torpid heart slept un- awalvencd by passion. His standard of poetry is by much too hmited ; he sup^^oses that the essence of pcetry is something of which a painter can make a i)icture. A picturesque verse was with him a verse completely poetical. But the language of the passions has no connection with this principle ; in truth, what he deUneates as poetry itself, is but one of its provinces. Deceived by his illusive standard, he has com- posed a poem which is perpetually fancy, and never passion. Hence his processional splendour fatigues, and his descriptive ingenuity comes at length to be deficient in novelty, and all the miracles of art cannot supply us with one touch of nature. Descriptive poetry should be relieved by a skilful inter- njixture of passages addressed to the heart as well as to the imagination : uniform description satiates ; and has been con- sidered as one of the inferior branches of poetry. Of this both Thomson and Goldsmith were sensible. In their beau- tiful descriptive poems they knew the art of animating the pictures of Fancy with the glow of Sentiment. Whatever may be thought of the originality of Darwin's poem, it has been preceded by others of a congenial disposi- tion. Brookes's poem on " Universal Beauty," published about 1735, presents us with the very model of Darwin's versification : and the Latin poem of De la Croix, in 1727, entitled " Connuhia Florum" with his subject. There also exists a race of poems which have hitherto been confined to one object, which the poet selected from the works of natui-e, to embellish with all the splendour of poetic imagmation. I have collected some titles. Perhaps it is Homer, in his battle of the Ft-ogs and Mice, and Virgil in the poem on a Gnat, attributed to him, who have given birth to these lusory poems. The Jesuits, par- ticularly when they composed in Latin verse, were partial to such subjects. There is a little poem on Gold, by P. Le Fevre, distinguished for its elegance ; and Brumoy has given the Art of making Glass ; in which he has described rHlLOSOl'HICAL DESCmPTUT: POEMS. 44 1 its various productions with equal felicity and knoAvledge. P. Vaniere has written on Pigeons, Du Ccrceau on Butter- Hies. The success wiiich attended these productions pro- duced numerous imitations, of which several were favourably received. Vaniere composed three on the Grape, the Vin- tage, and tlu' Kitchen Garden. Another poet selected Oranges for his theme ; others have chosen for their sub jects, Paper, Birds, and fresh-water Fish. Tarillon has in- flamed his imagination witli gnvpowder ; a milder genius, delighted with the oaten pij)e, sang of Sheep ; one who was more pleased with another kind of pipe, has written on To- bacco ; and a droll genius wrote a poem on Asses. Two writers have formed did:vctic poems on the Art of Enigmas, and on Ships. Others iiave written on moral subjects- Brumoy ha^ painted the Passions, with a variety of imagery and vi- vacity of description ; P. Meyer has disserted on Anger ; Tarillon, like our Stillingfleet, on the Art of Conversation ; and a lively writer has discussed the subjects of Humour arid Wit. Giannetazzi, an Italian Jesuit, celebrated for his Latin poetry, has composed two volumes of poems on Fishing and Navigation. Fracastor has written delicately on an indel- icate subject, his Syphilis. Le Brun wrote a delectable poem on Sweetmeats ; another writer on Mineral Waters, and a thii-d on Printing. Vida pleases with his Silk-worms, and his Chess ; Buchanan is ingenious with the Sphere. Malapert has aspired to catch the Winds ; the philosophic lluet amused himself with Salt, and again with Tea. The Gardens of Rapin is a finer poem than critics generally can write ; Quillet's Callipedia, or Art of getting handsome Children, has been translated by Rowe ; and Du Fresnoy at length gratifies the coimoisseur with his poem on Paint- ing, by the embellishments which his verses have received from the poetic diction of Ma.«on, and the commentary of Reynolds. 442 PAMPHLETS. This list might be augmented with a few of our own poets, and thei-e still remain some virgin themes which only require to be touched by the hand of a true poet. In the " Memoirs of Trevoux," they observe, in their review of the poem on Gold, " That poems of this kind have the advantage of in- structing us very agreeably. All that has been most remark- ably said on the subject is united, compressed in a luminous order, and dressed in all the agi'eeable graces of poetry. Such writers have no little diiiiculties to encounter : the style and expression cost dear ; and still more to give to an arid topic an agreeable foi'm, and to elevate the subject \n\h- out falling into another extreme. — In the other kinds of poetry the matter assists and prompts genius ; here we must possess an abundance to display it." PAMPHLETS. Mtles Davis's " Icon Libellorum, or a Critical His- tory of Pamphlets," affords some curious information ; and as this is a jt)a?rtjoA/e^-readmg age, I shall give a sketch of its contents. The author observes : " From Pamphlets may be learned the genius of the age, the debates of the learned, the follies of the ignorant, the bevues of government, and the mistakes of the courtiers. Pamphlets furnish beans with their airs, coquettes with their charms. Pamphlets are as modish ornaments to gentlewomen's toilets as to gentlemen's pockets; they carry reputation of wit and learning to all that make them their companions ; the poor find their account in stall- keeping and in hawking them ; the rich find in them their shortest way to the secrets of church and state. There is scarce any class of people but may thmk themselves inter- ested enough to be concerned with what is published m pamphlets, either as to their private instruction, curiosity, PAMPHLETS. 443 and reputation, or to the public advantage and credit ; with all which both ancient and modem pamphlets are too often over familiar and free. — In short, with pamphlets the book- sellers and stationers adorn the gaiety of .-hop-gazing. Hence accrues to gi'ocers, apothecaries, and chandlers, good fui'ni- ture, and supplies to necessary retreats and natural occasions. In pamphlets lawyers will meet with their chicanery, physi- cians with their cant, divines with their Shibboleth. Pam- phlets become moi'e and more daily amusements to the curious, idle, and imjuisitive ; pastime to gallants and co- quettes ; chat to the talkative ; catch-words to informers ; fuel to the envious ; poison to the unfortunate ; balsam to the wounded ; employ to the lazy ; and fabulous materials Ut romancers and novelists." This author sketches the origin and rise of pamphlets. He deduces them from the short wiitings published by the Jewish Rabbins ; various little pieces at the time of the first propagation of Christianity ; and notices a certain pamphlet which was pretended to have been the composition of Jesus Christ, thrown from heaven, and picked up by the archangel Michael at the entrance of Jerusalem. It was copied by the priest Leora, and sent about from priest to priest, tiU Pop€. Zachary ventured to pronounce it a forgery. He notices several such extraordinary publications, many of which pro- duced as extraordinary effects. He proceeds in noticing the first Arian and Popish pam- phlets, or rather libels, i. e. little books, as he distinguishes them. He relates a curious anecdote respecting the forgeries of the monks. Archbishop Usher detected in a manuscript of St. Patrick's life, pretended to have been found at Louvain, as an original of a very remote date, several passages taken, with little alteration, from his own writings. The following notice of our immortal Pope I cannot pass over: "Another class of pamphlets writ by Roman Cathohcs is that of Poems, written chiefly by a Pope himself, a gentle- Daan of that name. He passed always amongst most of his ao 444 PAMPHLETS. quaintance for what is commonly called a "Whig ; for it seems the Roman politics are divided as well as popish missionaries. However, one Esdras, an apothecary, as he qualifies himself, has published a piping-hot pamphlet against Mr. Pope's '■Ro'pe of the Lock,' which he entitles ^A Key to the Lock^ wherewith he pretends to unlock nothing less than a plot car- ried on by Mr. Pope in that poem against the last and this pi'esent ministry and government." He observes on Sermons, — "'Tis not much to be ques- tioned, but of all modern pamphlets what or wheresoever, the English stitched Sermons be the most edifying, useful, and instructive, yet they could not escape the critical Mr. Bayle's sarcasm. He says, ' Republique des Lettres,' March, 1710, in this article London, ' We see here sermons swarm daily from the press. Our eyes only behold manna : are you de- sirous of knowing the reason ? It is, that the ministers being allowed to read their sermons in the pulpit, hiiy all they meet with, and take no other trouble than to read them, and thus pass for very able scholars at a very cheap rate ! ' " He now begins more directly the history of pamphlets, which he branches out from four different etymologies. He says, " However foreign the word Pamphlet may appear, it is a genuine English word, rarely known or adopted in any other language : its pedigree cannot well be traced higher than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In its first state wretched must have been its appearance, since the great linguist John Minshew, in his ' Guide into Tongues^ printed in 1617, gives it the most miserable character of which any libel can be capable. Mr. Minshew says (and his words were quoted by Lord Chief Justice Holt,) 'A Pam- piiLKT, that is Opusculum Stolidorum, the diminutive per- formance of fools ; from ndv, all, and tt1tj&(j, I Jill, to wit, all places. According to the vulgar saying, all things are fuU of fools, or foolish things ; for such multitudes of pamphlets, unworthy of the very names of libels, being more vile than common shores and the filth of beggars, and being flying PAMPHLETS. 445 papers daubed over and besmeared with the foams of drunk- ards, are tossed far and near into the mouths and hands of scoundrels ; neither will the sham oi-acles of Apollo be es- teemed so mercenary as a Pamphlet.' " Tho.se who will have the word to be derived fi-om Pa.v, the famous knave of Loo, do not differ much from Minshew ; for the derivation of the word Pam is in all jn-obability from Trdv, all ; or the whole or the chief oi the game. Under this first et)Tnological notion of Pamphlets may be comprehended the vulgar stories of the Nine Worthies of the World, of the Seven Champions of Christendom, Tom Thumb, Valentine and Orson, &c., as also most of apocryphal lucubrations. The greatest collection of this first sort of Pam- phlets are the Rabbinic traditions in the Talmud, consisting of fourteen volumes in folio, and the Popish legends of the Lives of the Saints, which, though not finished, form fifty folio volumes, all which tracts were originally in pamphlet forms. The second idea of the radix of the word Pamphlet is, that it takes its derivations from nuv, all, and (j>i?ieu, I love, signify- ing a thing beloved by all ; for a pamphlet being of a small portable bulk, and of no great price, is adapted to every one's understanding and reading. In this class may be placed all stitched books on serious subjects, the best of which fugitive pieces have been generally preserved, and even reprinted in collections, of some tracts, miscellanies, sermons, poems, &c. ; and, on the contrary, bulky volumes have been reduced, for the convenience of the public, into the familiar shapes of stitched pamphlets. Both these methods have been thu3 censured by the majority of the lower house of convocation, ITIL These abuses are thus represented: "They have republished, and collected into volumes, pieces written long ago on the side of infidelity. They have reprinted together, in the most contracted manner, many loose and licentious pieces, in order to their being purchased more cheaply, and dispersed more easily." 44G PAilPHLETS. The third original interpretation of the word Pamphlet may be that of the leai'ned Dr. Skinner, in his JEtymoloyicon Lingucc AngUcancB, that it is derived from the Belgic word Pampier, signifying a little paper, or libel. To this third set of Pamphlets may be reduced all sorts of printed single sheets, or half sheets, or any other quantity of single paper prints, such as Declarations, Remonstrances, Proclamations, Edicts, Orders, Injunctions, Memoiials, Addresses, News- pa pei's, &c. The fourth radical signification of the word Pamphlet is that homogeneal acceptation of it, viz : as it imports any little book, or small volume whatever, whether stitched or bound, whether good or bad, whether serious or ludicrous. The only proper Latin term for a Pamphlet is Libellus, or little book. This word indeed signifies in English an abusive paper or little book, and is generally taken in the worst sense. After all this display of curious literature, the reader may smile at the guesses of Etymologists ; particularly when he is reminded that the derivation of Pamplilet is drawn from quite another meaning to any of the present, by Johnson, Avhich I shall give for his immediate gratification. Pajiphlet, [^par un jiht, Fr. Whence this word is writ- ten anciently, and by Caxton, paunjlet,^ a small book ; prop- erly a book sold unbound, and only stitched. The French have borrowed the word Pamphlet from us, and have the goodness of not disfiguring its orthography. Roast Beef is also in the same predicament. I conclude that Pamphlets and Roast Beef have therefore their origin in our country. Pinkerton favoured me with the following curious notice concerning pamphlets : — " Of the etymon of pamphlet I know nothing ; but that the word is far more ancient than is commonly believed, take the following proof from the celebrated Philohiblon, ascribed to Richard de Buri, bishop of Durham, but written by Robert Holkot, at his desire, as Fabricius says, about the year rAMPIILETS. 447 1344 (Fabr. Bibl. Medii ^vi, vol. i.) ; it is in the eighth chapter. " Sed, revera, libros non libras makiinuis ; codicesque plus dileximus quara florenos : ac I'ANFLktos exiguos phaleratis prajtuliinus palescedis." " But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds ; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small j)aiti- pJtIets to war horses." This word is as old as Lydgate's time : among his works, quoted by Warton, is a poem " translated from a pamjietc in Frenshe." EXD OF VCL T. ll V ' <-/:S jNVSOi^ %a3MNnmv rr ^ liri University of California SOOTHER;"REO>oVuBBARV;AaU^ 305 De Ne« D'"? ■ ^auFOBNIA 90095-1388 ^ios#cfl% |1 C=) A^^lOSANCElfju CO -J ^l-UBRARYO^ r Unwersity o1 Cahfornia Los Anqeles L 006 211 392 3 UC SOUTHf RN RFGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY :iLITY J AA 000 365 875 ^ -li <\IUBRARY