VIII. c. 10. 1 & 2. Philip and Mary, c. 4 & 5. Eliz. c. 20.

“The origin of this tribe of vagabonds called _Egyptians_, and popularly
Gipsies, is somewhat obscure; at least the reason of the denomination is
so. It is certain, the ancient Egyptians had the name of great cheats,
and were famous for the subtilty of their impostures, whence the name
might afterwards pass proverbially into other languages, as is pretty
certain it did into the Greek and Latin, or else the ancient Egyptians,
being much versed in astronomy, which in those days was little better
than Astrology, the name was on that score assumed by these _diseurs de
bonne avanture_, as the French call them, or tellers of good fortune. Be
this as it may, there is scarce any country in Europe, even at the
present day, but has its Egyptians, though not all of them under this
denomination: the Latins called them _Egyptii_; the Italians, _Cingani_,
and _Cingari_; the Germans, _Zigeuna_; the French, _Bohemiens_; others
_Saracens_, and others _Tartars_, &c.

Munster, Geogr. L. III. c. 5. relates, that they made their first
appearance in Germany, in 1417, exceedingly tawny and sun-burnt, and in
pitiful array, though they affected quality, and travelled with a train
of hunting dogs after them, like nobles. He adds, that they had
passports from King Sigismund of Bohemia, and other princes. Ten years
afterwards they came into France, and thence passed into England.

Pasquier, in his Recherches, L. IV. c. 19, relates the origin of the
Gipsies thus: On the 17th of April, 1427, there came to Paris twelve
penitents, or persons, as they said, adjudged to penance; viz. one duke,
one count, and ten cavaliers, or persons on horseback; they took on
themselves the characters of Christians of the Lower Egypt, expelled by
the Saracens; who having made application to the Pope, and confessed
their sins, received for penance, that they should travel through the
world for seven years, without ever lying in a bed. Their train
consisted of 120 persons, men, women, and children, which were all that
were left of 1200, who came together out of Egypt. They had lodgings
assigned them in the chapel, and people went in crowds to see them.
Their ears were perforated, and silver buckles hung to them. Their hair
was exceedingly black and frizzled; their women were ugly, thieves, and
pretenders to telling of fortunes. The bishop soon after obliged them to
retire, and excommunicated such as had shewn them their hands.

By an ordinance of the estates of Orleans, in the year 1560, it was
enjoined, that all these impostors under the name of _Bohemians_ and
_Egyptians_, do quit the kingdom on the penalty of the gallies. Upon
this they dispersed into lesser companies, and spread themselves over
Europe. The first time we hear of them in England was three years
afterwards, viz. anno 1563.

Ralph Volaterranus, making mention of them, affirms, that they first
proceeded or strolled from among the Uxii, a people of Persis or Persia.
(See GIPSIES.)

The following characteristic sketch of one of the primitive gipsies, is
ably delineated in the popular novel of Quentin Durward; with which we
shall close this article:

Orleans, who could not love the match provided for him by the King,
could love Isabelle, and follows her escort. Quentin, however, unhorses
him, and sustains a noble combat with his companion the renowned Dunais;
till a body of the archers ride up to his relief. The assailants are
carried off prisoners, and our victorious Scot pursues his dangerous
way, under uncertain guidance, as the following extract will shew:

“While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of his
followers, he heard the blast of a horn, and looking in the direction
from which the sound came, beheld a horseman riding very fast towards
them. The low size, and wild, shaggy, untrained state of the animal,
reminded Quentin of the mountain breed of horses in his own country; but
this was much more finely limbed, and, with the same appearance of
hardness, was more rapid in its movements. The head particularly, which,
in the Scottish poney, is often lumpish and heavy, was small and well
placed in the neck of this animal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes,
and expanded nostrils.

“The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which
he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although
he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in
broad stirrups, something resembling a shovel, so short, that his knees
were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His dress was a red
turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume, secured by a
clasp of silver; his tunic, which was shaped like those of the
Estradiots, a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time levied in
the provinces, on the eastern side of their gulf, was green in colour,
and tawdrily laced with gold; he wore very wide drawers or trowsers of
white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered beneath the knee, and
his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the complicated laces which
bound a pair of sandals on his feet; he had no spurs, the edge of his
large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to goad the horse in a very
severe manner. In a crimson sash this singular horseman wore a dagger on
the right side, and on the left a short crooked Moorish sword, and by a
tarnished baldrick over the shoulder hung the horn which announced his
approach. He had a swarthy and sun-burnt visage, with a thin beard, and
piercing dark eyes, a well-formed mouth and nose, and other features
which might have been pronounced handsome, but for the black elf-locks
which hung around his face, and the air of wildness and emaciation,
which rather seemed to indicate a savage than a civilized man.

“Quentin rode up to the Bohemian, and said to him, as he suddenly
assumed his proper position on the horse, ‘Methinks, friend, you will
prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather
than his ears.’

“‘And if I were actually blind,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘I could guide
you through any county in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to
it.’

“‘Yet you are no Frenchman born,’ said the Scot.

“‘I am not,’ answered the guide.

“‘What countryman, then, are you?’ demanded Quentin.

“‘I am of no country,’ answered the guide.

“‘How! of no country?’ repeated the Scot.

“‘No!’ answered the Bohemian, ‘of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an
Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may
chuse to call our people; but I have no country.’

“‘Are you a Christian?’ asked the Scotchman.

“The Bohemian shook his head.

“‘Dog,’ said Quentin, (for there was little toleration in the spirit of
Catholicism in those days,) ‘dost thou worship Mahoun?’

“‘No,’ was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither
seemed offended nor surprised at the young man’s violence of manner.

“‘Are you a Pagan then, or what are you?’

“‘I have no religion,’ answered the Bohemian.

“Durward started back; for, though he had heard of Saracens and
idolaters, it had never entered into his ideas or belief, that any body
of men could exist who practised no mode of worship whatsoever. He
recovered from his astonishment, to ask where his guide usually dwelt.

“‘Wherever I chance to be for the time,’ replied the Bohemian. ‘I have
no home.’

“‘How do you guard your property?’

“‘Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse I ride on, I have no
property.’

“‘Yet you dress gaily, and ride gallantly,’ said Durward. ‘What are your
means of subsistence?’

“‘I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, and have no other
means of subsistence than chance throws in my way,’ replied the
vagabond.

“‘Under whose laws do you live?’

“‘I acknowledge obedience to none, but as it suits my pleasure,’ said
the Bohemian.

“‘Who is your leader, and commands you?’

“‘The father of our tribe—if I chuse to obey him,’ said the guide—
‘otherwise I have no commander.’

“‘You are then,’ said the wondering querist, ‘destitute of all that
other men are combined by—you have no law, no leader, no settled means
of subsistence, no house, or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate
you, no country—and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no
God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic
happiness, and religion?’

“‘I have liberty,’ said the Bohemian—‘I crouch to no one—obey no one—
respect no one.—I go where I will—live as I can—and die when my day
comes.’

“‘But you are subject to instant execution, at the pleasure of the
Judge.’

“‘Be it so,’ returned the Bohemian; ‘I can but die so much the sooner.’

“‘And to imprisonment also,’ said the Scot; ‘and where, then, is your
boasted freedom?’

“‘In my thoughts,’ said the Bohemian, ‘which no chains can bind; while
yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your laws and
your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and your fantastic
visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in spirit when our limbs are
chained—You are imprisoned in mind, even when your limbs are most at
freedom.’

“‘Yet the freedom of your thoughts,’ said the Scot, ‘relieves not the
pressure of the gyves on your limbs.’

“‘For a brief time that may be endured; and if within that period I
cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can
always die, and death is the most perfect freedom of all.’

There was a deep pause of some duration, which Quentin at length broke,
by resuming his queries.

“‘Yours is a wandering race, unknown to the nations of Europe—Whence do
they derive their origin?’

“‘I may not tell you,’ answered the Bohemian.

“‘When will they relieve this kingdom from their presence, and return to
the land from whence they came?’ said the Scot.

“‘When the day of their pilgrimage shall be accomplished,’ replied his
vagrant guide.

“‘Are you not sprung from those tribes of Israel which were carried into
captivity beyond the great river Euphrates?’ said Quentin, who had not
forgotten the lore which had been taught him at Aberbrothock.

“‘Had we been so,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘we had followed their faith,
and practised their rites.’

“‘What is thine own name?’ said Durward.

“‘My proper name is only known to my brethren—The men beyond our tents
call me Hayraddin Maugrabin, that is, Hayraddin the African Moor.’

“‘Thou speakest too well for one who hath lived always in thy filthy
horde,’ said the Scot.

“‘I have learned some of the knowledge of this land,’ said Heyraddin.—
‘When I was a little boy, our tribe was chased by the hunters after
human flesh. An arrow went through my mother’s head, and she died. I was
entangled in the blanket on her shoulders, and was taken by the
pursuers. A priest begged me from the Provost’s archers, and trained me
up in Frankish learning for two or three years.’

“‘How came you to part with him?’ demanded Durward.

“‘I stole money from him—even the God which he worshipped,’ answered
Hayraddin, with perfect composure; ‘he detected me, and beat me—I
stabbed him with my knife, fled to the woods, and was again united to my
people.’

“‘Wretch!’ said Durward, ‘did you murder your benefactor?’

“‘What had he to do to burden me with his benefits?—The Zingaro boy was
no house-bred cur to dog the heels of his master and crouch beneath his
blows, for scraps of food—He was the imprisoned wolf-whelp, which at the
first opportunity broke his chain, rended his master, and returned to
his wilderness.’

“There was another pause, when the young Scot, with a view of still
farther investigating the character and purpose of this suspicious
guide, asked Hayraddin, ‘Whether it was not true that his people, amid
their ignorance, pretended to a knowledge of futurity, which was not
given to the sages, philosophers, and divines, of more polished
society?’

“‘We pretend to it,’ said Hayraddin, ‘and it is with justice.’

“‘How can it be that so high a gift is bestowed on so abject a race?’
said Quentin.

“‘Can I tell you?’ answered Hayraddin—‘Yes, I may indeed; but it is when
you shall explain to me why the dog can trace the footsteps of a man,
while man, the noble animal, hath no power to trace those of the dog.
These powers, which seem to you so wonderful, are instinctive in our
race. From the lines on the face and on the hand, we can tell the future
fate of those who consult us, even as surely as you know from the
blossom of the tree in spring, what fruit it will bear in the harvest.’”




JUGGLERS, THEIR ORIGIN, EXPLOITS, &c.


Those occupations which were of the most absolute necessity to the
support of existence, were, doubtless, the earliest, and, in the infancy
of society, the sole employments that engaged attention. But when the
art and industry of a few were found sufficient for the maintenance of
many, property began to accumulate in the hands of individuals, and as
all could no longer be engaged in the productions of the necessaries of
life, those who were excluded applied their ingenuity to those arts
which, by contributing to the convenience of the former, might enable
them to participate in the fruits of their labour; and several of these
have acquired a pre-eminence over the more useful avocations. A taste
for the wonderful seems to be natural to man in every stage of society,
and at almost every period of life; we, therefore, cannot wonder that,
from the earliest ages, persons have been found, who, more idle or more
ingenious than others, have availed themselves of this propensity, to
obtain an easy livelihood by levying contributions on the curiosity of
the public. Whether this taste is to be considered as a proof of the
weakness of our judgment, or of innate inquisitiveness, which stimulates
us to enlarge the sphere of our knowledge, must be left to the decision
of metaphysicians; it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that
it gave rise to a numerous class of persons, whom, whether performers of
sleight of hand, rope-dancers, mountebanks, teachers of animals to
perform extraordinary tricks, or, in short, who delude the senses, and
practice harmless deception on spectators, we include under the common
title of Jugglers.

If these arts served no other purpose than that of mere amusement, they
yet merit a certain degree of encouragement, as affording at once a
cheap and innocent diversion: but Jugglers frequently exhibit
instructive experiments in natural philosophy, chemistry, and mechanics;
thus, the solar microscope was invented from an instrument to reflect
shadows, with which a Savoyard amused a German populace; and the
celebrated Sir Richard Arkwright is said to have conceived the idea of
the spinning machines, which have so largely contributed to the
prosperity of the cotton manufacture in this country, from a toy which
he purchased for his child of an itinerant showman. These deceptions
have, besides, acted as an agreeable and most powerful antidote to
superstition, and to that popular belief in miracles, conjuration,
sorcery, and witchcraft, which preyed upon the minds of our ancestors;
and the effects of shadows, electricity, mirrors, and the magnet, once
formidable instruments in the hands of interested persons for keeping
the vulgar in awe, have been stripped of their terrors, and are no
longer frightful in their most terrific forms.

That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many innocent
beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, is too well known
to require illustration: our own statute books are loaded with penalties
against sorcery; at no very distant period our courts of law have been
disgraced by criminal trials of that nature; and judges who are still
cited as models of legal knowledge and discernment, not only permitted
such cases to go to a jury, but allowed sentences to be recorded which
consigned reputed wizards to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late
as the year 1739, a Juggler was exposed to the torture, until a
confession was extracted from him that he was a sorcerer, upon which,
without further proof, he was immediately hanged; and instances in other
countries might be multiplied without end. But this, although it exceeds
in atrocity, does not equal in absurdity, the infatuation of the
tribunal of the inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned to the
flames, as being possessed with the devil, a horse belonging to an
Englishman, who had taught it to perform some uncommon tricks; and the
poor animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon,
in conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601.

The only parts of Europe in which the arts of sorcery now obtain any
credit, is Lapland; where, indeed, supposed wizards still practise
incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of future
events, and in which the credulity of the people induces them to place
the most implicit confidence. On such occasions a magic drum is usually
employed. This instrument is formed of a piece of wood of a semi-oval
form, hollow on the flat side, and there covered with a skin, in which
various uncouth figures are depicted; among which, since the
introduction of Christianity into that country, an attempt is usually
made to represent the acts of our Saviour and the Apostles. On this
covering several brass rings of different sizes are laid, while the
attendants dispose themselves in many antic postures, in order to
facilitate the charm; the drum is then beat with the horn of a
rein-deer, which occasioning the skin to vibrate, puts the rings in
motion round the figures, and, according to the positions which they
occupy, the officiating seer pronounces his prediction.

It is unfortunate that of all the books (and there were several) which
treated of the arts of conjuration, as they were practised among the
ancients, not one is now extant, and all that we know upon the subject
is collected from isolated facts which have been incidentally mentioned
in other writings. From these it would, however, appear, that many of
the deceptions which still continue to excite astonishment, were then
common.

A century and a half before our æra, during the revolt of the slaves in
Sicily, a Syrian of their number, named Eunus, a man of considerable
talent, who after having witnessed many vicissitudes, was reduced to
that state, became the leader of his companions by pretending to an
inspiration from the gods; and in order to confirm the divinity of his
mission by miracles, he used to breath flames from his mouth when
addressing his followers. By this art the Rabbi Barchschebas also made
the credulous Jews believe that he was the Messiah, during the sedition
which he excited among them in the reign of Adrian; and, two centuries
afterwards, the Emperor Constantius was impressed with great dread, when
informed that one of the body-guards had been seen to breathe out fire.
Historians tell us that these deceptions were performed by putting
inflammable substances into a nut-shell pierced at both ends, which was
then secretly conveyed into the mouth and breathed through. Our own
fire-eaters content themselves with rolling a little flax, so as to form
a small ball, which is suffered to burn until nearly consumed; more flax
is then tightly rolled round it, and the fire will thus remain within
for a long time, and sparks may be blown from it without injury,
provided the air be inspired, not by the mouth but through the nostrils.
The ancients also performed some curious experiments with that
inflammable mineral oil called Naphtha, which kindles on merely exposing
near a fire. Allusion is supposed to have been made to this in the story
of the dress of Herculus, when it is said to have been dipped in the
blood of Nessus. Many assert that it was with this substance Medea
destroyed Creusa, by sending to her a dress impregnated with it, which
burst into flames when she drew near the fire of the altar; and there
can be no doubt that it was used by the priests on those occasions when
the sacrificial offerings took fire imperceptibly.

The trial by Ordeal, in the middle ages, in which persons accused of
certain crimes were forced to prove their innocence by walking blindfold
among burning ploughshares, or by holding heated iron in their hands,
was probably little else than a juggling trick, which the priests
conducted as best suited their views. The accused was committed to their
care during three entire days previous to the trial, and remained in
their custody for the same space after it was over; the Ordeal took
place in the church under their own immediate inspection; they not only
consecrated, but heated, the iron themselves; mass was then said, and
various ceremonies were performed, all calculated to divert the
attention of the spectators; and when the operation was over, the part
which had been exposed to the fire was carefully bound up and sealed,
not to be opened until the end of the third day; doubtless, therefore,
the time before the trial was occupied in preparing the skin to resist
the effects of the heat, and that afterwards in obliterating the marks
of any injury it might have sustained. That such was the fact has,
indeed, been acknowledged in the works of Albertus Magnus, a Dominican
friar, who, after the trial by Ordeal had been abolished, published the
secret of the art, which, if his account be correct, consisted in
nothing more than covering the hands and feet at repeated intervals with
a paste made of the sap of certain herbs mixed together with the white
of an egg.

This deception was, however, practised in times more remote than the
period to which we have alluded. There was anciently an annual festival
held on Mount Soracte, in Etruria, at which certain people called
_Hirpi_, used to walk over live embers, for which performance they were
allowed some peculiar privileges by the Roman senate; the same feat was
achieved by women at the temple of Diana, at Castabala, in Cappadocia;
and allusion is even made, in the Antigone of the Grecian poet
Sophocles, who wrote nearly five centuries anterior to our æra, to the
very species of Ordeal which has been just noticed.

In modern times, much notice has been excited by jugglers, who practised
deceptions by fire. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, one
Richardson, an Englishman, excited great astonishment at Paris, by
pretending to chew burning coals and to swallow melted lead, with many
other equally extraordinary feats; some of which are thus recorded in
Evelyn’s diary:—“October the 8th, 1672, took leave of my Lady
Sunderland, who was going to the Hague to my Lord, now ambassador there.
She made me stay dinner at Leicester House, and afterwards sent for
Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He, before us, devoured brimstone on
glowing coals, chewing and swallowing them. He melted a beere glasse and
eate it quite up; then taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a
raw oyster; the coal was blowne on with bellows till it flamed and
sparkled in his mouth, and so remained until the oyster was quite
boiled; then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he dranke down
as it flamed.” Many of our readers must recollect Signora Girardelli;
and Miss Rogers, the American fire-eater, who was announced as having
entered a heated oven with a leg of mutton in her hand, and having
remained there until it was baked! This young lady exhibited all the
tricks usually performed by such persons; she washed her hands in
boiling oil, and then suffered aquafortis to be poured over them; but
below the oil, there, no doubt, was a quantity of water, the air from
which, when heated, forcing itself through the supernatant oil, gave it
the appearance of boiling, when in reality its temperature probably did
not exceed a hundred degrees of Fahrenheit; and when the hands were once
well coated with oil, there was no danger from the aquafortis. She had
also a ladle of melted lead, out of which she appeared to take a little
with a spoon and pour into her mouth, and then to return in the shape of
a solid lump; but in pretending to take the lead into the spoon, it was,
in fact, quicksilver that was received, through a dexterous contrivance
in the ladle, and this she swallowed, the solid lead having been
previously placed in her mouth. She, besides, repeatedly placed her foot
on a bar of hot iron; but the rapidity with which she removed it
scarcely allowed time to injure the most delicate skin, even had it not
been previously prepared: the cuticle of the hands and of the soles of
the feet may, however, be easily rendered sufficiently callous to
support a longer experiment. This effect will be produced if it be
frequently punctured, or injured by being in continual contact with hard
substances; repeatedly moistening it with spirit of vitriol will also at
length render it horny and insensible; and thus it is not uncommon to
see the labourers at copper-works take the melted ore into their hands.

The exhibition of cups and balls is of great antiquity, and depends
entirely on manual dexterity. It is mentioned in the works of various
ancient authors, one of whom relates the astonishment of a countryman,
who, on first witnessing the performance, exclaimed, “that it was well
he had no such animal on his farm, for under such hands no doubt all his
property would soon disappear.”

Feats of strength have been common to all countries in every age. More
than fifteen hundred years ago, there were persons who excited
astonishment by the since ordinary exhibition of supporting vast weights
upon the breast, and of even suffering iron to be forged on an anvil
placed upon it. But these were mere tricks: to support the former, it is
only necessary to place the body in such a position, with the shoulders
and feet resting against some support, as that it shall form an arch;
and as for the latter, if the anvil be large and the hammer small, the
stroke will scarcely be felt; for the action and reaction being equal
and reciprocal, an anvil of two hundred pounds weight will resist the
stroke of a hammer of two pounds, wielded with the force of one hundred
pounds, or of four pounds with the impetus of fifty, without injury to
the body.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a German, who
travelled over Europe under the appropriate name of Sampson, and who
rendered himself celebrated by the uncommon strength which he displayed:
among many other extraordinary feats, it is said, that he could so fix
himself between two posts, as that two or even more horses, could not
draw him from his position. The same exploit was attempted not many
years back, in this country, by a person who placed himself with his
feet resting in a horizontal posture against a strong bar; only one
horse was employed, and the man was enabled to resist the entire force
of the animal, until both his thigh bones suddenly snapped asunder.
Another had the temerity to try the same experiment, and, in like
manner, broke both his legs. These instances clearly show, that apparent
strength is often nothing more than a judicious application of the
mechanical powers to the human frame; and from the catastrophe attending
the two latter may be deduced the anatomical fact, that the sinews of
the arms possess a greater power of resistance than the largest bones of
the body.

Feats of tumbling, rope dancing, and horsemanship, were practised at
very early periods. Xenophon mentions a female dancer at Athens, who
wrote and read while standing on a wheel which revolved with the
greatest velocity; but the manner in which this was performed is not
explained. Juvenal seems also to have alluded to a similar performance
at Rome, in that passage where he says:

“_An magis oblectant animum jactata petauro,
Corpora quique solent rectum descendere funem,
Quam tu._” _Sat._ xiv. v. 265.

which, however, also wants explanation, although one of his most
judicious translators has rendered it

——“The man who springs
Light through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings.”
_Gifford._

Addison tells us, that, in his travels through Italy, he witnessed an
annual exhibition that is peculiar to the Venetians. “A set of artisans,
by the help of poles, which they laid across each others’ shoulders,
built themselves up in a kind of pyramid; so that you saw a pile of men
in the air, of four or five rows, rising one above another. The weight
was so equally distributed that every man was well able to bear his part
of it; the stories, if they might be so called, growing less and less as
they advanced higher and higher. A little boy presented the top of the
pyramid, who, after a short space, leaped off, with a great deal of
dexterity, into the arms of one who caught him at the bottom.” But this
was only the revival of an ancient feat, which, as we learn from the
following verses of the poet Claudian, was formerly practised among the
Romans:—

“_Vel qui mare arrum sese jaculantur in auras,
Corporaque adificant celeri cressentia nexu,
Queram compositam puer augmentatus in arcem
Emicat, et vinctas plantæ, vel eruribus hærens,
Pendulo librato figit vestigia sulta._”
_De Pr. et Obyb. Cono._

“Men pil’d on men, with active leaps arise,
And build the breathing fabric to the skies;
A sprightly youth above the topmast row
Paints the tall pyramid, and crowns the show.”
_Addison._

In the thirteenth century, these performances were introduced at
Constantinople, by a strolling company from Egypt, who afterwards
travelled to Rome, and thence through great part of Europe. They could
stand in various postures on horses while at full speed, and both mount
and dismount without stopping them; and their rope-dancers sometimes
extended the rope on which they poised themselves between the masts of
ships.

It appears also that the ancients taught animals to perform many tricks
that are still exhibited, and some even yet more extraordinary. In the
year 543, a learned dog was shown at the Byzantine court, which not only
selected, and returned to the several owners, the rings and ornaments of
the spectators, which were thrown together before him, but on being
asked his opinion respecting the character of some of the females who
were present, he expressed it by signs at once so significant and
correct, that the people were persuaded he possessed the spirit of
divination. In the reign of Galba, an elephant was exhibited at Rome
which walked upon a rope stretched across the theatre; and such was the
confidence reposed in his dexterity, that a person was mounted on him
while he performed the feat.

It must require the exercise not alone of vast patience, but also of
extraordinary cruelty, mingled perhaps with much kindness, to train
animals to exhibit a degree of intelligence approaching to that of human
beings. It is said that bears are taught to dance by being placed in a
den with a floor of heated iron: the animal, endeavouring to avoid the
smart to which his paws are thus exposed, rears himself on his hind
legs, and alternately raises them with the utmost rapidity, during all
which time a flageolet is played to him; and after this lesson has been
frequently repeated, he becomes so impressed with the associated
recollection of the music and the pain, that, whenever he hears the same
tune, he instinctively recurs to the same efforts, in order to escape
the fancied danger.

In the middle of the last century, there was an Englishman, named
Wildman, who excited great attention by the possession of a secret
through the means of which he enticed bees to follow him, and to settle
on his person without stinging him. A similar circumstance is related in
Francis Bruce’s voyage to Africa in 1698, in which mention is made of a
man who was constantly surrounded by a swarm of these insects, and who
had thence obtained the title of “King of the bees.”

Only one instance is recorded in ancient history of the art of supplying
the deficiency of hands by the use of toes; and that is of an Indian
slave belonging to the emperor Augustus, who, being without arms, could,
notwithstanding, wield a bow and arrows and put a trumpet to his mouth
with his feet.

Of late years some persons have exhibited themselves in the character of
stone-eaters; but although these are to be considered as mere jugglers,
yet it would appear that there have been others who actually possessed
the faculty of digesting similar substances. Of the instances on record
we shall merely select one, from the “_Dictionnaire Physique_,” of
father Paulian:—“The beginning of May 1760, there was brought to Avignon
a true lithophagus, or stone-eater, who had been found, about three
years before that time, in a northern island, by the crew of a Dutch
ship. He not only swallowed flints of an inch and a half long, a full
inch broad, and half an inch thick, but such stones as he could reduce
to powder, such as marble, pebbles, &c., he made up into paste, which
was to him a most agreeable and wholesome food. I examined this man with
all the attention I possibly could; I found his gullet very large, his
teeth exceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, and his stomach
lower than ordinary, which I imputed to the vast quantity of flints he
had swallowed, being about five and twenty, one day with another. His
keeper made him eat raw flesh with the stones, but could never induce
him to swallow bread; he would, however, drink water, wine, and brandy,
which last liquor appeared to afford him infinite pleasure. He usually
slept twelve hours a day, sitting on the ground, with one knee over the
other, and his chin resting on it; and when not asleep he passed the
greater part of his time in smoking.” In the year 1802, there was a
Frenchman, who, indeed, did not profess to eat stones, but who publicly
devoured at the amphitheatre, in the city of Lisbon, a side of raw
mutton, with a rabbit and a fowl, _both alive_: he advertised a
repetition of the experiment, with the addition of a live cat; but the
magistrates, deeming the exhibition too brutal for the public eye, would
not again allow its performance. Notwithstanding the public display of
this man, and the extraordinary fact of his having appeared to swallow
living animals, may rank him in the class of jugglers, it is still
probable that he was no impostor; for instances of such uncommon powers
of the stomach are by no means rare, and among others we read of another
Frenchman who was in the constant habit, as an amateur, of eating cats
alive, and was even strongly suspected of having devoured a child.




LEGENDS, &c. MIRACLES, &c.


A Legend[79] was originally a book used in the old Romish churches,
containing the lessons that were to be read in divine service. Hence
also the lives of saints and martyrs came to be called legends, because
chapters were read out of them at matins, and in the refectories of the
religious houses. The GOLDEN LEGEND is a collection of the lives of the
Saints, compiled by James De Varasse, better known by the Latin name of
J. De Veragine, Vicar-General of the Dominicans, and afterwards Bishop
of Genoa, who died in 1298. It was received into the church with the
most enthusiastic applause, which it maintained for 200 years; but, in
fact, it is so full of ridiculous and absurd romantic monstrosities,
that the Romanists themselves are now generally ashamed of it. On this
very account alone the word Legend got into general disrepute.

The following is stated to be the origin of those ecclesiastical
histories entitled Legends:—The professors in rhetoric, before colleges
were established in the monasteries where the schools were held,
frequently gave their pupils the life of some saint for a trial of their
talent at _amplification_. The students, being constantly at a loss to
furnish out their pages, invented most of these wonderful adventures.
Jortin observes, that the Christians used to collect out of Ovid, Livy,
and other pagan poets and historians, the miracles and portents, so
found there, and accommodated them to their own monks and saints. The
good fathers of that age, whose simplicity was not inferior to their
devotion, were so delighted with these flowers of rhetoric, that they
were induced to make a collection of these miraculous compositions; not
imagining that, at some distant period, they would become matters of
faith. Yet when James De Veragine, Peter Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira,
wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought for the materials in the
libraries of these monasteries; and, awakening from the dust the
manuscripts of amplification, imagined they made an invaluable present
to the world, by laying before them these voluminous absurdities. The
people received these pious fictions with all imaginable simplicity; and
as the book is adorned with a number of cuts, these miracles were
perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Fleury, Tillemont, Baillet,
Launoi, and Ballendus, cleared away much of the rubbish. The enviable
title of _Golden Legend_, by which James De Veragine called his work,
has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly express the character
of this folio.

The monks, when the world became more critical in their reading, gave a
graver turn to their narratives, and became more penurious of their
absurdities. The faithful Catholic contends that the line of tradition
has been preserved unbroken; notwithstanding that the originals were
lost in the general wreck of literature from the barbarians, or came
down in a most imperfect state. Baronius has given the lives of many
apocryphal saints; for instance, of a Saint _Xenoris_, whom he calls a
Martyr of Antioch; but it appears that Baronius having read this work in
Chrysostom, which signifies a couple or pair, he mistook it for the name
of a saint, and continued to give the most authentic biography of a
saint who never existed! The Catholics confess this sort of blunder is
not uncommon, but then it is only fools who laugh!

As a specimen of the happier inventions, one is given, embellished by
the diction of Gibbon the historian.

“Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted to
distinguish the memorable fable of the _Seven Sleepers_, whose imaginary
date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the
conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the emperor Decius persecuted
the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a
spacious cavern on the side of an adjacent mountain, where they were
doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should
be firmly secured by a pile of stones. They immediately fell into a deep
slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring the powers of
life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end
of that time the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the
mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some
rustic edifice. The light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the
Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake: after a slumber, as they
thought, of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and
resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to
the city to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if
we may still employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once
familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by
the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal
gate of Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded
the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current
coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on suspicion of a secret treasure,
was dragged before the judge. Their mutual inquiries produced the
amazing discovery that two centuries were almost elapsed since
Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a pagan tyrant.
The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, it
is said, the emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of
the Seven Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
and at the same instant peaceably expired.

“This popular tale Mahomet learned when he drove his camels to the fairs
of Syria; and he has introduced it, as a divine revelation, into the
Koran.” The same story has been adopted and adorned, by the natives from
Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion.

These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a saint’s
filthiness. St. Ignatius delighted, say they, to appear abroad with old
dirty shoes; he never used a comb, but suffered his hair to run into
clots, and religiously abstained from paring his nails. One saint
attained to such a pitch of piety as to have near three hundred patches
on his breeches; which, after his death, were exhibited in public as a
stimulus to imitate such a _holy life_. St. Francis discovered, by
certain experience, that the devil was frightened away by similar kinds
of _unmentionables_; but was animated by clean clothing to tempt and
seduce the wearers; and one of their heroes declares that the purest
souls are in the dirtiest bodies. On this subject a story is told by
them which may not be very agreeable to fastidious delicacy. Brother
Juniper was a gentleman perfectly pious in this principle; indeed so
great was his merit in this species of mortification, that a brother
declared he could always nose Brother Juniper when within a mile of the
monastery, provided he was at the due point. Once, when the blessed
Juniper, for he was no saint, was a guest, his host, proud of the honour
of entertaining so pious a personage, the intimate friend of St.
Francis, provided an excellent bed and the finest sheets. Brother
abhorred such luxury; and this too evidently appeared after his sudden
departure in the morning, unknown to his kind host. The great Juniper
did this, says his biographer, (having told us what he did) not so much
from his habitual inclinations for which he was so justly celebrated, as
from his excessive piety, and as much as he could to mortify worldly
pride, and to shew how a true saint despised clean sheets.

Among other grotesque miracles we find, in the life of St. Francis, that
he preached a sermon in a desert, but he soon collected an immense
audience. The birds shrilly warbled to every sentence, and stretched out
their necks, opened their beaks, and when he finished, dispersed with a
holy rapture into four companies, to report his sermon to all the birds
of the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during
the absence of the Virgin Mary, and fastened on his head. He grew so
companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to
twitter, he hushed them, by desiring them not to tittle tattle of his
sister the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign manual of
the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the
wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint,
followed him through towns, and became half a Christian. This same St.
Francis had such a detestation of the good things of this world, that he
would never suffer his followers to touch money. A friar having placed
some money in a window collected at the altar, he observed him to take
it in his mouth and throw it on the dung of an ass! St. Phillip Nerius
was such an admirer _of poverty_ that he frequently prayed God would
bring him to that state as to stand in need of a penny, and find none
that would give him one! But St. Macaire was so shocked at having
_killed a louse_ that he endured seven years of penitence among the
thorns and briars of a forest.

The following miraculous incident is given respecting two pious maidens.
The night of the Nativity of Christ, after the first mass, they both
retired into a solitary spot of their nunnery till the second mass was
rung. One asked the other, “why do you want two cushions, when I have
only one?” The other replied, “I would place it between us, for the
child Jesus; as the Evangelist says, “Where there are two or three
persons assembled I am in the midst of them.”—This being done, they sat
down, feeling a most lively pleasure at their fancy; and there they
remained from the nativity of Christ to that of John the Baptist; but
this great interval of time passed with these saintly maidens, as two
hours would appear to others. The abbess and her nuns were alarmed at
their absence, for no one could give any account of them. On the eve of
St. John, a cowherd passing by them, beheld a beautiful child seated on
a cushion between this pair of run-away nuns. He hastened to the abbess
with news of this stray sheep, who saw this lovely child playfully
seated between these nymphs, who, with blushing countenances, enquired
if the second bell had already rung? Both parties were equally
astonished to find our young devotees had been there since the birth of
Christ to that of John the Baptist. The abbess inquired after the child
who sat between them: they solemnly declared they saw no child between
them, and persisted in their story.”

“Such,” observes a late writer on this subject, “is one of the miracles
of the ‘Golden Legend,’ which a wicked wit might comment on, and see
nothing extraordinary in the whole story. The two nuns might be missing
between the nativities, and be found at last with a child seated between
them. They might not choose to account either for their absence or their
child: the only touch of miracle is, that they asseverated they saw _no
child_, that I confess is a _little (child)_ too much.

Ribadeneira’s Lives of the Saints exhibit more of the legendary spirit
than Alban Butler’s work on the same subject, (which, by the bye, is the
most sensible history of these legends;) for wanting judgment and not
faith, the former is more voluminous in his details, and more ridiculous
in his narratives.

Alban Butler affirms that St. Genevieve, the patron of Paris, was born
in 422, at Nanterre, four miles from Paris, near the present Calvary
there, and that she died a virgin on this day in 512, and was buried in
545, near the steps of the high altar, in a magnificent church,
dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, began by Clovis, where he also was
interred. Her relics were afterwards taken up and put into a costly
shrine about 630. Of course they worked miracles. Her shrine of gold and
silver, covered with precious stones, the presents of kings and queens,
and with a cluster of diamonds on the top, presented by the intriguing
Mary de Medicis, is, on calamitous occasions, carried about Paris in
procession, accompanied by shrines equally miraculous, and by the canons
of St. Genevieve walking barefoot.

The _miracles_ of St. Genevieve, as related in the Golden Legend, were
equally numerous and equally credible. It relates that when she was a
child, St. Germaine said to her mother, “Know ye for certain that on the
day of Genevieve’s nativity the angels sung with joy and gladness,” and
looking on the ground he saw a penny signed with the cross, which came
there by the will of God; he took it up, and gave it to Genevieve,
requiring her to bear in mind that she was the spouse of Christ. She
promised him accordingly, and often went to the minister, that she might
be worthy of her espousals. “Then,” says the Legend, “the mother was
angry, and smote her on the cheek—God avenged the child, so that the
mother became blind,” and so remained for one and twenty months, when
Genevieve fetched her some holy water, signed her with the sign of the
cross, washed her eyes, and she recovered her sight. It further relates,
that by the Holy Ghost she showed many people their secret thoughts, and
that from fifteen years to fifty, she fasted every day except Sunday and
Thursday, when she ate beans, and barley bread of three weeks old.
Desiring to build a church, and dedicate it to St. Denis and other
martyrs, she required materials of the priests for that purpose. “Dame,”
answered the priests, “we would; but we can get no chalk nor lime.” She
desired them to go to the bridge of Paris, and bring what they found
there. They did so till two swineherds came by, one of whom said to the
other, ‘I went yesterday after one of my sows and found a bed of lime;’
the other replied that he had also found one under the root of a tree
that the wind had blown down. St. Genevieve’s priests of course inquired
where these discoveries were made, and bearing the tidings to Genevieve,
the church of St. Denis was began. During its progress the workmen
wanted drink, whereupon Genevieve called for a vessel, prayed over it,
signed it with the cross, and the vessel was immediately filled; “so,”
says the Legend, “the workmen drank their belly full,” and the vessel
continued to be supplied in the same way with “drink” for the workmen
till the church was finished. At another time a woman stole St.
Genevieve’s shoes, but as soon as she got home lost her sight for the
theft, and remained blind, till, having restored the shoes, St.
Genevieve restored the woman’s sight. Desiring the liberation of certain
prisoners condemned to death at Paris, she went thither and found the
city gates were shut against her, but they opened without any other key
than her own presence. She prayed over twelve men in that city possessed
with devils, till the men were suspended in the air, and the devils were
expelled. A child of four years old fell into a pit, and was killed; St.
Genevieve only covered her with her mantle and prayed over her, and the
child came to life, and was baptised at Easter. On a voyage to Spain she
arrived at a port “where, as of custom, ships were wont to perish.” Her
own vessel was likely to strike on a tree in the water, which seems to
have caused the wrecks; she commanded the tree to be cut down, and began
to pray; when lo, just as the tree began to fall, “two wild heads, grey
and horrible, issued thereout, which stank so sore, that the people
there were envenomed by the space of two hours, and never after perished
ship there; thanks be to God and this holy saint.”

At Meaux, a master not forgiving his servant his faults, though St.
Genevieve prayed him, she prayed against him. He was immediately seized
with a hot ague: “on the morrow he came to the holy virgin, running with
open mouth like a German bear, his tongue hanging out like a boar, and
requiring pardon.” She then blessed him, the fever left him, and the
servant was pardoned. A girl going out with a bottle, St. Genevieve
called to her, and asked what she carried: she answered oil, which she
had bought; but St. Genevieve seeing the devil sitting on the bottle,
blew upon it, and the bottle broke, but the saint blessed the oil, and
caused her to bear it home safely notwithstanding. The Golden Legend
says, that the people who saw this, marvelled that the saint could see
the devil, and were greatly edified.

It was to be expected that a saint of such miraculous powers in her
lifetime should possess them after her death, and accordingly the
reputation of her relics is very high.

Several stories of St. Genevieve’s miraculous faculties, represent them
as very convenient in vexatious cases of ordinary occurrence; one of
these will serve as a specimen. On a dark wet night she was going to
church with her maidens, with a candle borne before her, which the wind
and rain put out; the saint merely called for the candle, and as soon as
she took it in her hand it was lighted again, “without any fire of this
world.”

Other stories of her lighting candles in this way, call to mind a
candle, greatly venerated by E. Worsley, in a “Discourse of Miracles
wrought in the Roman Catholic Church, or, a full refutation of Dr.
Stillingfleet’s unjust Exceptions against Miracles,” octavo, 1676. At p.
64, he says, “that the _miraculous wax candle_, yet seen at Arras, the
chief city of Artois, may give the reader entertainment, being most
certain, _and never doubted of by any_. In 1105, that is, much above 720
years ago, (of so great antiquity the candle is,) a merciless plague
reigned in Arras. The whole city, ever devout to the Mother of God,
experienced her, in this their necessity, to be a true mother of mercy;
the manner was thus: The Virgin Mary appeared to two men, and enjoined
them to tell the bishop of Arras, that on the next Saturday towards
morning she would appear in the great church, and put into his hands a
wax candle burning; from whence drops of wax should fall into a vessel
of water prepared by the bishop. She said, moreover, that all the
diseased that drank of this water, should forthwith be cured. _This
truly promised, truly happened._ Our blessed Lady appeared all
beautiful, having in her hands a wax candle burning, which diffused
light over the whole church; this she presented to the bishop; he
blessing it with the sign of the cross, set it in the urn of water; when
drops of wax plentifully fell down into the vessel. The diseased drank
of it; all were cured; the contagion ceased; and the candle to this day,
preserved with great veneration, spends itself, yet loses nothing; and
therefore remains still of the same length and greatness it did 720
years ago. A vast quantity of wax, made up of the many drops which fall
into the water upon those festival days, when the candle burns, may be
justly called a standing indeficient miracle.”

This candle story, though gravely related by a catholic writer, as “not
doubted of by any,” and as therefore not to be doubted, miraculously
failed in convincing the protestant Stillingfleet, that “miracles
wrought in the Roman catholic church,” ought to be believed.




MONKS AND FRIARS.—SAINTS AND HERMITS.


The early monks attracted the notice of the people by the rigid exercise
of their devotions. The greater part of them passed their time in
deserted places, in divine contemplation, and in the acquisition of
useful knowledge; in consequence of which, they began to be venerated
and considered as heavenly-minded men, approaching to the perfection of
angels; but in the course of time, and on this very account, their
reclusion, and the regard in which they were held, soon induced
multitudes to betake themselves to the same courses of life, though not
with the same views; as being more profitable than the remuneration
resulting from their own homely and industrious avocations. The numbers
that embraced this profession became at length so overwhelming and
intolerant, that factions burst out amongst them, to which the spirit of
the people soon became subject, and to cause grievous disturbances
thereby, both to church and state. Many of the wandering hordes, under
the denomination of monks, are represented by Gregory Nazianzen, as
crews of ruffians and banditti, rather than as sober-minded men,
professing a scrupulous morality, with a view to the amelioration of
society and the welfare of mankind in general. They were cruel,
rapacious, insinuating, cunning, and not unfrequently malignant in the
extreme, indulging in the vilest propensities that shock and disgust
human nature; and if we may believe their contemporaries, no species of
vice was unknown to, or left unpractised by them.

The first dawn of monkish influence and power in the western world, was
ushered in by St. Jerome, who, though represented as a very pious and
good man, but having some passions the world had not yet gratified, grew
wroth with and retired into the east, where he turned monk; and, as if
to be revenged of the ungrateful world, he openly professed, that it
were hardly possible to receive salvation in it without adopting the
same course as he had done, that was, to become a monk. And although
thus far monkery had its way paved in the west by the resolutions of
Jerome, it was many years after his death, before any order of monkhood
was instituted in that quarter.

Benedict, who lived about an hundred years after St. Jerome, being
reckoned the father of the order in the western parts, and although it
does not appear that he formed any order of monks, with the three vows,
yet since the oldest monkish order in the Roman church is called by his
name, we shall give first a short sketch of him and his order; leaving
the reader to take, as well in this instance as in those that follow, as
much for granted as he can well swallow, without danger of being choked.

Of the birth, parentage, and education of the _Blessed_ Benedict, all we
can state is, that his holiness drew his first pious and miraculous
breath in Rome, about the year 480; and that having, whilst a boy,
become weary of a wicked world, he retired to the Desert of Sabulea in
Italy, where he was kindly received and hospitably entertained by a
monk, whose name was Roman, who lived retired from man, in the cleft of
an immense high rock, of difficult and hazardous access. The generous
and christianlike Roman supplied his young guest with a portion of all
he begged, borrowed, or stole, or could possibly spare out of his own
all devouring paunch. But it would appear, that getting tired of his
protegé, whose appetite, perhaps, might be too great a drawback upon his
fortuitous resources, or whether in the midst of an accidental and
unexpected _blow out_ that he met with, somewhere or other, on an
Easter-eve, he forgot to supply his guest in the cranny with his usual
fare; be this as it may, all protecting Providence, that “feeds the
young ravens,” and who “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” was not on
this occasion unmindful of young Benedict; for it turned out that a
certain priest, whose name we are not favoured with, and who it appears
had been on a similar foraging expedition as Roman, against Eastertide,
was hailed by a voice from heaven, and bid “_not to take so much care of
his own gut, but to carry that he had provided to the place where
Benedict was_.” The priest obeyed; gave Benedict the contents of his
market basket, and also told him that it was Easter-day, an event that
was unknown to him previous to this unexpected visit. Having, however,
been subsequently forced out of his den to procure food, for it does not
appear that either Roman or the priest ever returned, some shepherds
discovered him crawling among the bushes covered with “beasts’ hair;” at
which they became so terrified, that taking him for some savage monster,
they were about to depart, when they had a glimpse of his _physog_,
which certainly formed an encouraging contrast when compared with the
preter human developement of his body; the result was, the shepherds
took courage and approached him; and having, as the story goes, been
much edified with his discourse, they informed the neighbourhood of the
affair, which was the means of young Benedict being well supplied with
every thing he stood in need of; in return for which, they were as well
repaid with godly exhortations. But the devil, who, no doubt, is always
on the _que vive_ when any of his opponents are getting a-head of him,
was resolved to put young ’Dict’s chastity to the test, appeared to him
in the shape of a blackbird, and approached so near to his mouth that
_’dict_ might, had he thought proper, have grabbed him; but, instead of
availing himself of this opportunity to crush old Beelzebub, he
heroically suffered him to escape, although he, the devil, left behind
him “so terrible a dishonest carnal temptation,” that Benedict never
before nor after this time, felt such queer and indescribable
sensations; in short, he was in such a quandary, that he hesitated and
doubted whether it would not be better for him to return once more to
the world, the flesh, sin and the devil; yet, having recovered himself a
little from the paroxysm with which the devil had contrived to possess
him, he threw off his clothes and rolled among thorns. But whereas
Benedict, for sundry causes and reasons moving him thereunto, did keep a
raven, which said raven the aforesaid Benedict did constantly every day
feed with his own hand, which raven, Benedict, whether from similarity
of appetite or other latent and peculiar passion, always addressed by
the familiar and consanguineous appellation of brother; on this
occasion, having offered him a part of the poisoned loaf, the sagacious
raven rejected it with indignation, and commenced flying and croaking
about his master, pointing out to him, in the most _ravenous_ manner,
the evil intended him. Alarmed at such conduct, Benedict said, Brother,
I did not offer you this loaf that you should eat it, but that you might
carry it and hide it somewhere, that it may never do any hurt. This was
done, the raven disposed of the poisoned loaf, returned, and had his
dinner as usual[80].

Notwithstanding this disappointment, Florentino did not cease to
persecute Benedict. He got together, for this purpose, a number of
common strumpets, whom he sent to dance naked before the holy Friar;
this ordinance, to the great joy of Florentino, they correctly performed
to the letter, which compelled Benedict to leave the place, lest
peradventure he might be tempted _di novo_ to sin against the flesh, as
he was in the wilderness, by the Devil in the shape of a blackbird. But
that joy was not of long duration, for soon after Florentino’s house
fell down upon him and killed him. When Benedict heard of his death, he
was exceedingly troubled, not because he died during his wicked courses,
but _because he had, he said, lost an enemy, who, if he had lived, would
have increased his merits much_. After this great loss, Benedict was
informed, that Apollo still had a temple on the mountain of Callino, and
was worshipped in it with sacrifices; he accordingly mustered together
some of his brethren, and went and pulled it down to the ground, set
fire to all the groves that surrounded it, and having built a monastery
on the same spot, he converted the whole country round to christianity.

The Devil, as may easily be supposed, got very angry with Benedict for
having deprived him of that mountain, called out Benedict, Benedict, for
the purpose of speaking to him, but Benedict, it appears, did not
vouchsafe to answer him; in consequence of which, the Devil left him,
ejaculating, as he fled away, Maledict, Maledict, what hast thou to do
with me? Why do you persecute me so much? And, in the height of his
diabolical passion and despair, threw down a wall that was building,
which unfortunately fell upon a boy and killed him; but Benedict, to be
revenged of the Devil, soon brought him to life again. Brother Plaudo
had been drowned, if brother Mauro had not been sent by Benedict to draw
him out of the water. There was a great fuss made to know who was the
author of that miracle; Benedict conferring the merit on Mauro, and
Mauro, equally courteous and condescending, attributing it to Benedict.

The order styled the Benedictine, was not only the oldest but the
richest in the Roman church. The costume was black, in compliment, no
doubt, to the Raven, who had the honour of being Benedict’s first
brother; and the leather belt which they wore, was believed to possess
so much virtue, that it was kissed kneeling by all who visited them, if
they wished to be well received.

The second order of monks, and which, similar to the others, arose out
of the relaxations of the Benedictines, was that of _Cluny_ in France,
instituted about the year 900, by Abbot Odo.

This order differed very little from the Benedictine. When Odo was a boy
he was much delighted with Virgil: “he was cured of that dangerous
appetite by a vessel, which was very curious, being shewn to him, but
which was within full of deadly serpents; and lest Odo should, by his
great fondness for Virgil, have been hindered from applying that vision
right, the application was made by a voice from Heaven; and which Odo
having heard, he flung away his Virgil and all his serpents with it. And
having been after that much devoted to St. Martin, though he met with no
serpents in his way, as he went by night to St. Martin’s church to pray
to him, he met with herds of foxes, which so pestered him, that he
scarcely knew what to do; this plague continued until a kind wolf came,
and did offer Odo his assistance, and of which Odo having accepted, that
wolf, when he travelled, was such a guard to him, and when he was within
doors such a porter, that the foxes never molested him any more.”

The third order of monks in the Roman church was the Camalduman in
Italy, instituted by Romualdus about the year 970. He was born at
Ravenna, and had been sentenced to live 40 days in a monastery, for
having been concerned in a duel, in which his father, who was a duke,
had killed his adversary; and it was from this circumstance that he was
miraculously converted into a monk, an honour which he had previously
frequently refused, at the solicitation of a brother of the order with
whom he had contracted an acquaintance. The monk at length asked whether
he would consent to be one of them, if _St. Apolonar appeared to him_,
to which he replied he would. It was therefore contrived that St.
Apolonar, or his representative, should actually appear; and in order to
receive this visit, his friend, the monk and himself, spent the night in
prayer before an altar. Just as the cock crowed, St. Apolonar emerged
from under the identical altar, where, no doubt, his proxy had
previously been concealed, “clothed with light and having a golden
censor in his hand: he went about in his pontificalibus, and incensed
all the altars in the church, and after he had done that, went back by
the same way that he came. And though it is not said that Apolonar did
speak a word to Romualdus of turning monk, he did nevertheless, upon
that vision, take the habit upon him; and not having learnt to read and
sing his psalter, he was taught it by a monk whose name was Marinus, and
who switched him so severely on the left-side of his head, that his left
ear lost its hearing; and which was borne with that cheerfulness, that
he spoke to Marinus to switch him on the other side of the head, when he
deserved to be corrected.”

Never was monk so kicked and cuffed about, persecuted and tormented by
the Devil, as poor Romualdus. At first the Devil knocked such a dust at
the door of his cell whenever he went to bed, that he could not get a
wink of sleep for the noise. Being at length so much exhausted for want
of a nap, he began, notwithstanding the horrid noise, to snooze a
little, when the Devil turned himself into some heavy body and laid so
heavy upon his thighs and legs, that he severely bruised them, and broke
some of the bones. And though monk Romualdus often made his tormentor
slink out of his cell, ashamed of his evil doings, he would,
nevertheless, not cease to molest him. So frequently, in fact, was he
visited by Armadeus, and so numerous were their conflicts, that a
brother monk could not approach the cell of Romualdus without being
mistaken for the Devil by him: and believing this to be the case, he
would cry out as loud as his lungs would permit—“_Accursed, what
would’st thou have? Bold dog, I forbid thee to come here; thou poisonous
serpent, that was thrown down from Heaven, I do forbid thee!_” These
were the weapons with which this miraculously converted monk had always
ready to meet the Devil whenever he made his appearance. One evening,
however, as he was muttering over his _Completus_, a whole squadron of
Devils rushed in upon him, knocked him down, kicked him for falling, and
inflicted several very severe wounds upon his precious body; and
although he was weary and faint with loss of blood, he continued saying
all the while his _Completus_ till he completed, when by a short prayer
he dispersed the whole battalion.

After this great and glorious victory, the Devil would never grapple
with him again; but would, sometimes, in the shape of a Raven, a
Bustard, an Ethiopian, or some savage beast, stand at a distance, loll
out his tongue, and make wry faces at him. And although Romualdus was a
bit of a duellist, as we have already shewn, would challenge and dare
the Devil to come up to the mark, his devilship was too good a judge to
venture near him; and finding at length that he was no match for
Romualdus, he stirred up divers monks to persecute him, which, in fact,
they did with great fury, but with as ill success as he who prompted
them.

The fourth order of monks is that of the _Valle Umbrosa_, instituted by
one Gilbert, from whom his fraternity assumed the name of Gilbertines.
The reader will at once know enough of this Mr. Gilbert when we inform
him, at once, that he was the pupil of Romualdus, and that he was called
to be a monk by a crucifix, which, when he was in the act of worshipping
it, nodded its head and smiled at him.

The fifth order is the Carthusian, instituted towards the end of the
eleventh century; it is governed by institutions of its own making, and
is the strictest order in the Roman church. This monastery was generally
the last refuge of the discontented, rather than the retreat of
unfeigned piety and devotion, who threw themselves into this solitary
state of life, to which they fettered themselves, by indissoluble vows,
for the remainder of their days. They were allowed enough of good bread
and wine, and although they abstained from flesh, and every thing that
had touched it, they had a plentiful supply of good fish and fruit.

This inhuman order was instituted by one Bruno, a German, but who was a
canon of the church of Rheims; of whom the reader will learn enough,
when we inform him that he was driven to this determination by a
Parisian doctor, with whom he had been intimately acquainted, and of
whose piety as well as learning, he entertained a very high opinion, and
who for three days following after his death, when he was on the point
of being committed to the grave, sate up, and loudly declared, _that by
the just judgment of God_ he was damned; which, as soon as he had
pronounced, he lay down again.[81]

There is another story that the bishop of Grenoble, the night before
_Bruno_ and his six companions came to him, in quest of a solitary place
to live in, had a vision, in which he saw Christ come down from Heaven,
and in a desert place of his diocese, called the Chartreuse, built a
palace. He likewise beheld seven stars of the colour of gold, which
having joined themselves together, they made a crown, which by degrees
raised itself from the earth, and ascended up into heaven. The bishop at
first sight knew Bruno and his companions to be the seven stars he had
seen; and in consequence of this recognition, he bestowed upon them all
the lands called the Chartreuse. In order, also, that Bruno should be as
little remiss in his duty and gratitude, he erected the monastery as
conformable to the vision of the bishop as means and materials would
allow.

The sixth order of monks in the Roman church is the Cistertian, said to
have been instituted by Abbot Robert; but whether it was so or
otherwise, Bernard has always been named as the founder.

Bernard was born in France in the 12th century; and to do him justice,
he seems to have had the best natural parts, and the most learning of
any of the monastic founders; and had it not been for the tragical fraud
he adopted to promote a very unfortunate _cruzado_, and the other frauds
he used in favour of the Pope, to whom he adhered during the time of a
schism, his sincerity and piety might have been judged equal to his
other talents.

His mother, during the time she was pregnant with him, dreamed she had a
white dog in her womb, which in all probability was the reason the
Cistertian monks dressed in white, in the same manner as Benedict’s
raven might have suggested the colour to the vestments of the
Benedictines.

During his infancy Bernard was much troubled with head-ach; and an old
woman having been sent for to cure him, he would not suffer her to come
near him, from the belief that she made use of charms. One
Christmas-day, when he was at church, during his boyhood, he prayed that
the very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and
when that hour came, he saw a new-born infant. What a pity it is that
Bernard, who has written so much, did not record that hour, the day, the
month, and the year, about which chronologers are still so much divided.

During a hard frosty night, Bernard was seized with a violent paroxysm
of satyriasis, or strong carnal inclination: he precipitated himself
into a pond of water, and remained there until he was almost frozen to
death.

On another occasion, during the time he was preaching to a very numerous
congregation, who were listening to him, a temptation of vain glory
invaded him, and he heard a voice within him saying, _see, how all the
people do attend unto your words_. He was just going to leave off
preaching to mortify this temptation, but perceiving it was the Devil
who had addressed him, for the purpose of interrupting his sermon, he
turned about his head to the tempter, and thus coolly spoke to him—_As I
did not begin this sermon for thee, so neither will I end it for thee_,
and so went on preaching as before. He was always very sickly, and not
only rejoiced that he was so himself, but he judged it fit that all
monks ought to be so: for which reason he built _Claraval_, and all his
other monasteries, in low damp places.

Bernard laboured hard to bring all his monks to an uninterrupted
attention to their devotions; and having one day, as he was riding, been
told by a peasant, “_that he found that to be an easy thing_;” he
promised him the mule he rode upon, if he would but say the Lord’s
prayer without any distraction of thought. The peasant began the prayer,
but before he got half through it, he confessed that “it came into his
mind, whether with the mule he was to have the saddle and bridle also.”

Being at Pavia, a woman possessed of a devil was brought before him; but
before Bernard had time to utter a word to the woman, the devil cried
out, “do you think that such an onion and leek carrier as this, is able
to throw me out of possession?” Upon which Bernard ordered the woman to
be carried to St. Sirus’ church, in which, though Sirus had previously
dispossessed all that had ever come before him, he would not do it at
this time, that Bernard might have the honour of it himself. The devil,
however, set them both at defiance, and in a scoffing manner told them,
that neither little _Siry_ nor little _Barny_ should turn him out. But
the devil was mistaken for once in his life; little _Barny_, as he
styled him, soon served an ejectment upon him. To another woman in the
same city, on whom the devil had lain in a very dishonest manner, he
gave a stick, with which she so belaboured him, that he never troubled
her any more.

After Bernard had persuaded the kings of England and France to submit to
the Pope; but not being able to prevail upon the Duke of Aquitaine, he
went one day to him with the sacrament in his hand, when the Duke threw
himself down at his feet; on which Bernard gave him a lusty kick, and
bade him rise and acknowledge the true Pope. The Duke rose immediately,
and being thus kicked into it, made his submission, and acknowledged the
_Vicegerent_ of Heaven.

The seventh order of monks is the Cælestine, instituted by Petrus
Moronus, who having afterwards become Pope, took the name of Cælestine.
This poor monk was persuaded by Cardinal Cagestan, who took the name of
Boniface the 8th, to abdicate the Roman chair, that he might spend his
whole time in devotion. But his successor, Boniface, fearing that were
he at liberty in his monastery, it might come into his head to return to
the pontifical chair, kept him a close prisoner as long as he lived.

The eighth order of monks is the Williamite, called also the order of
_Montes Virginis_, and of _Montis Oliveti_, instituted by one William, a
noble Italian, which at one time possessed 47 monasteries. There were
_Hermits_ who were likewise called Williamites, from William, Duke of
Aquitaine, but they were amalgamated with the mendicant order of the
monks of St. Austin.

The ninth order was the Sylvestern. There was also another instituted by
the nobles of Milan, called the _Humiliate_, who having quarrelled with
Cardinal Borromeus, Archbishop of Milan, dissolved the order and seized
all their revenues, which were immense.

All the preceding orders, besides the Carthusians, were all under the
Benedictine rule, whose monks were both the oldest and richest
pertaining to the Roman church, in which the monastic rules are four in
number—namely, the rule of St. Bazil, St. Austin, and St. Benedict.

The order of monks under St. Austin’s rule, as it was called, were the
canons regular, the _Premonstratenses_; the _Dominicans_; the
_Hieronomites_, in various shapes; the _Servites_; the _Jesuits_; the
_Crucigeri_; the _Boni Jesu_; the _Trinitarians_; the _Eremites of St.
Augustin_; the _Theatines_; the _Pautestæ_; the _military orders of St.
John of Jerusalem_, of _St. James of Compostella_, of the _Teutonick
order_, of _St. Lazarus_, and of _St. Mauritius_.

The Dominican order, of which only we shall here allude, is the third
under the rule of St. Austin, was instituted about the beginning of the
13th century, and is both the first mendicant order and the first order
that had a solemn confirmation from the Pope. They are very numerous,
and have still many convents in Spain and Portugal.

Dominick, the founder of this order, was born in Spain, in 1170. His
mother, when she was with child with him, dreamed that she was delivered
of a hog, with a flaming torch in his mouth, an emblem appropriate
enough for an inquisitor; and when he was baptized, his god mother,
although it was visible to no one else, saw a star that illuminated all
the world; and as he lay in his cradle, a swarm of bees pitched upon his
lips. And, although from the day of his baptism to the day of his death,
he is said never to have committed one mortal sin, he would,
nevertheless, before he was seven years old, rise out of his costly bed,
for his parents were said to have been very rich, and lie upon the
ground. When he was a boy he would never play or use any pastimes; and
when he arrived at man’s estate, he gave all that had been left him by
his father, with the exception of his books, among the poor; and having
nothing else left to give, he gave them his books also.

Seeing a woman one day weeping bitterly for the loss of her brother, who
had been taken captive by the Moors, he begged her to take him, and to
sell him to those infidels, and with the money he should fetch, redeem
her brother; but, to his extreme mortification, the woman refused to
comply with his desire.

One day, when Dominick was in his study, the devil so pestered him in
the shape of a flea, leaping and frisking about on the leaves of his
book, that he found it impossible to continue his reading: irritated at
length by such unhandsome treatment, he fixed him on the very spot where
he finished reading, and in this shape made use of him to find the place
again. Having at last, however, released old _nick_ from this
demonological dilemma, he appeared to him again in his study in the
guise of a monkey, and grinned so “horribly a ghastly grin,” and skipped
about so, that he was more annoyed now than before. To put a stop to
these monkey tricks, Dominick forthwith commanded him, the said monkey,
to take the candlestick and hold it for him; this the monkey did, and
Dominick made him continue holding it, until it was burnt down to the
bottom of the wick, and although the monkey made a horrid noise at
burning his fingers, he was forced to hold it until it was burnt out,
which it did until it had burnt the devil’s monkey fingers to the bone.

Having gone into France with the bishop of Osma, of whose church
Dominick was a canon, though by preaching and working miracles he
converted the _Albigenses_ about Toulouse by thousands in a day, he,
nevertheless, so roused Simon de Montford, who was general of the Pope’s
_cruzado_ against those christians, by which Montfort, and his
_cruzado_, to which Dominick was the chief chaplain, that many thousands
of those poor christians were butchered.

That part of France must necessarily, at that time, have been very
populous, otherwise there could not have been so many of those
christians left for Montfort to murder, after Dominick had made such
extensive conversions among them, for assuredly Montfort would not lay
violent hands on any of his proselytes. The greatest conversion ever
made by Dominick was after he had the rosary given him by the blessed
virgin, whose virtues Dominick successfully eulogized with all the
eloquence he was master of. There was one, however, desperate enough to
ridicule both the rosary and the mountebank oratory upon its virtues;
but he was soon punished for his audacity, by a great number of devils
getting into him; but Dominick relenting at the sufferings of the
demoniac, although he did not deserve such commiseration at his hands,
called the devils to an account for the uproarious noise they made; when
the following colloquy passed between them.

DOMINICK.—How came you to enter this man, and how many are you in
number?

DEVILS.—(_After tremendous howlings._) We came into him for having
spoken disrespectfully of the rosary; and for his having laughed and
made “_merry game_” of your sermons. We are 15,000 in number, and have
been forced much against our inclination to enter one who might have
done us infinite services.

DOM.—Why did so many as 15,000 of you enter him?

DEV.—Because there are 15 decads in the rosary which he derided.

DOM.—Why did you suffer this man to be brought to me?

DEV.—(_All together roaring out._) It was done to our great confusion:
we could not prevent it.

DOM.—Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary?

DEV.—(_After the most hideous bellowing_.) Cursed be the hour in which
we entered into this _statue_? Woe be unto us for ever! Why did we not
suffocate him before he was brought hither? But it is now too late and
we cannot do it, for thou holdest us in burning flames and chains of
fire, so that we are forced to declare the truth to thee, to our great
prejudice. O yes! O yes! Know all christian men and women, that this
cruel Dominick, this implacable enemy of ours, has never said one word
concerning the virtues of the rosary that is not most true; and know ye
further, that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall
you.

DOM.—Who was the man in the world the devil hated the most?

DEV. (_All of them._) Thou art the very man, who, by thy prayers, and by
thy severe ways of penance, and by thy sermons, hast shown the way to
Paradise to every one, and hast snatched our prey. But know thou, that
our dark congregation and infernal troop are so enraged against thee,
that a brigade of the strongest and most mischievous spirits have a
commission to fall upon thee and them.

DOM. (_turning to the people_.) God forbid, O Christians! that you
should believe all that is said by the devils, who are liars, and
inventors of lies. Not but that the Almighty is able to communicate so
much strength to the vilest and most miserable sinner, as will overcome
all infernal hosts, as you see I do at this time, who am the greatest of
sinners.

DEV.—Cursed be so great humility as this, which tears and torments us so
much.

DOM. (_Throwing his stole, for he had not his scapulary yet, which has
much more virtue, about the neck of the Demoniac._) Of which state of
men among Christians are there the most damned?

Here an extraordinary circumstance took place, for no sooner had
Dominick’s stole touched the neck of the demoniac than a great quantity
of thick gory blood burst out at his nose, and a poisonous clay from his
ears. At this sight, Dominick commanded the rebellious devils to desist
from tormenting the poor sinner.

DEV. We will with all our heart, if ye will suffer us to depart.

DOM. Ye shall not stir until ye have answered the question put you.

DEV. In hell there are a great many bishops and princes, but not many
country people, who, though not perfect, are not very great sinners.
There are also a great many merchants, and townspeople, such as
pawnbrokers, fraudulent bakers, grocers, Jews, apothecaries, gamblers,
rakes, &c. who were sent there for covetousness, cheating,
voluptuousness, &c.

DOM. Are there any priests or monks in Hell?

DEV. There are a great number of priests, but no monks, with the
exception of such as had transgressed the rule of their order.

DOM. How are you off for Franciscans?

DEV. Alas! alas! we have not one yet, but we expect a great number of
them after their devotion is a little cooled.

DOM. What saint in heaven does the devil fear most?

Instead of returning any answer to this question, the devils begged
Dominick by all that was sacred to be satisfied with the torments he had
already inflicted upon them, and with those to which they were condemned
in hell, begging he would not insist upon a true answer to that question
before so great a congregation, to the ruin of their kingdom; telling
him, that if he would ask the angels they would tell him who it was.
This, however, would not satisfy Dominick, who, whatever virtues he
might have, had little mercy in his composition, especially, it would
appear, towards devils. He persisted upon their telling; and, perceiving
how reluctant the demons were to comply with his wishes, he threw
himself upon the ground, and went to work, hammer and tongs, with his
rosary; upon which sulphureous flames of fire burst forth from his nose,
mouth, eyes and ears; after this above an hundred angels, clad in golden
armour, appeared with the blessed virgin in the midst of them, holding a
golden rod in her hand, with which she gave the demoniac a switch on the
back, commanding, at the same time, the devils to return true answers to
Dominick’s questions; at this they all roared out lustily, _O our enemy!
O our damner! O our confusion! Why didst thou come down from heaven to
torment us here? Why art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners? O
thou most certain and secure way to heaven; but since thou commandest
it, we must tell the truth, though it will confound us, and bring woe
and misery on our princes of darkness for ever. Hear, O Christians_,
continued the devils, this mother of Christ is too powerful in
preserving all her servants from hell; it is she that, as a sun,
dissipates all our darkness, _and enervates and brings to nought all our
machinations. We are forced to confess that nobody is damned who
perseveres in her holy worship, and is devoted to her. One sigh from her
has more power than the prayers of all the saints; and we fear her more
than all the citizens of Paradise; and you must all know, that vast
numbers of Christians are, contrary to right, saved by calling upon her
at the time of their death; and that we should long ago have destroyed
the church, if it had not been for this little Mary; and being now
forced to it, we must own, that none who persevere in the exercise of
the rosary, can undergo the eternal torments of hell, for she obtains
contrition for all her devout servants._

Here the _confab_ ended between 15,000 cowardly devils, and Dominick,
who exhorted the congregation to join with him in reciting the rosary:
and behold a great miracle: at every angelical salutation, a multitude
of devils rushed out of the demoniac in the shape of burning coals, and
the blessed virgin having given the congregation her benediction,
disappeared, leaving Dominick in quest of fresh enterprises against the
devil and his horde.

Dominick was a proud designing man, and of a very ferocious disposition.
The stories related of the St. Franciscan order, are equally absurd and
ridiculous.

Similar stories are too numerous: we shall therefore close this subject
with


_The Hermit of the Pillar._
(_St. Simeon Stylites, St. Telesephorus, St. Syncletia._)

We are informed by Alban Butler, that St. Simeon Stylites, the ycleped
hermit of the pillar, astonished the whole Roman Empire by his
mortifications. In the monastery of Heliodorus, a man 65 years of age,
who had spent 62 years so abstracted from the world that he was ignorant
of the most obvious things in it; the monks ate but once a day; Simeon
joined the communities, and ate but once a week. Heliodorus required
Simeon to be more private in his mortifications: “with this view,” says
Butler, “judging the rough rope of the well, made of twisted palm tree
leaves, a proper instrument of penance; Simeon tied it close about his
naked body, where it remained unknown both to the community and his
superior, till such time as it having ate into his flesh, what he had
privately done was discovered by the effluvia proceeding from the
wound.” Butler says, that it took three days to disengage the saint’s
clothes, and that “the incisions of the physician, to cut the cord out
of his body, were attended with such anguish and pain, that he lay for
some time as dead.” After this he determined to pass the whole forty
days of Lent in total abstinence, and retired to a hermitage for that
purpose. Bassus, an abbot, left with him ten loaves and water, and
coming to visit him at the end of the forty days, found both loaves and
water untouched, and the saint stretched on the ground without signs of
life. Bassus dipped a sponge in water, moistened his lips, gave him the
eucharist, and Simeon by degrees swallowed a few lettuce leaves and
other herbs. He passed twenty-six Lents in the same manner. In the first
part of a Lent he prayed standing: growing weaker, he prayed sitting;
and towards the end, being almost exhausted, he prayed lying on the
ground. At the end of three years he left his hermitage for the top of a
mountain, made an inclosure of loose stones, without a roof, and having
resolved to live exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, he fixed
his resolution by fastening his right leg to a rock with a great iron
chain. Multitudes thronged to the mountain to receive his benediction,
and many of the sick recovered their health. But as some were not
satisfied unless they touched him in his enclosure, and Simeon desired
retirement from the daily concourse, he projected a new and
unprecedented manner of life. He erected a pillar six cubits high, (each
cubit being eighteen inches,) and dwelt on it four years; on a second of
twelve cubits high, he lived three years; on a third of twenty-two
cubits high, ten years; and on a fourth, of forty cubits, or sixty feet
high, which the people built for him, he spent the last twenty years of
his life. This occasioned him to be called _Stylites_, from the Greek
word _stylos_, a pillar. This pillar did not exceed three feet in
diameter at the top, so that he could not lie extended on it; he had no
seat with him; he only stooped or leaned to take a little rest, and
bowed his body in prayer so often, that a certain person who counted
these positions, found that he made one thousand two hundred and
forty-four reverences in one day, which if he began at four o’clock in
the morning, and finished at eight o’clock at night, gives a bow to
every three quarters of a minute; besides which, he exhorted the people
twice a day. His garments were the skins of beasts; he wore an iron
collar round his neck, and had a horrible ulcer in his foot. During his
forty days’ abstinence throughout Lent, he tied himself to a pole. He
treated himself as the outcast of the world and the worst of sinners,
worked miracles, delivered prophecies, had the sacrament delivered to
him on the pillar, and died bowing upon it, in the sixty-ninth of his
age, after having lived upon pillars for six and thirty years. His
corpse was carried to Antioch attended by the bishops and the whole
country, and worked miracles on its way. So far this account is from
Alban Butler.

Without mentioning circumstances and miracles in the Golden Legend,
which are too numerous, and some not fit to be related; it may be
observed, that it is there affirmed of him, that after his residence on
the pillars, one of his thighs rotted a whole year, during which time he
stood on one leg only. Near Simeon’s pillar was the dwelling of a
dragon, so very venemous that nothing grew near his cave. This dragon
met with an accident; he had a stake in his eye, and coming all blind to
the saint’s pillar, and placing his eye upon it for three days, without
doing harm to any one, Simeon ordered earth and water to be placed on
the dragon’s eye, which being done, out came the stake, a cubit in
length; when the people saw this miracle, they glorified God, and ran
away for fear of the dragon, who arose and adored for two hours, and
returned to his cave. A woman swallowed a little serpent, which
tormented her for many years, till she came to Simeon, who causing earth
and water to be laid on her mouth, the little serpent came out four feet
and a half long. It is affirmed by the Golden Legend, that when Simeon
died, Anthony smelt a precious odour proceeding from his body; that the
birds cried so much, that both men and beasts cried; that an angel came
down in a cloud; that the Patriarch of Antioch, taking Simeon’s beard to
put among his relics, his hand withered, and remained so, till
multitudes of prayers were said for him, and it was healed; and that
more miracles were worked at and after Simeon’s sepulture, than he had
wrought all his life.




HOLY RELIQUE-MANIA.


On the first introduction of the relics of saints, the mania became
universal; they were bought and sold, and, like other collectors, made
no scruple to steal them. It is not a little amusing to remark the
singular ardour and grasping avidity of some to enrich themselves with
religious morsels; their little discernment, the curious impositions and
resources of the vender to impose on the good faith and sincerity of the
purchaser. It was not uncommon for the prelate of the place to ordain a
fast, in order to implore God that 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 Nogen 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 those lying miracles. It was on
the occasion of one of our Saviour’s teeth, that De Nogen took up his
pen on this subject, by which the monks of St. Medard de Soissons
pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he asserted to be as
chimerical as that of several persons who believed they possessed the
navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of Christ.

There is a history of the translation of Saint Lewin, a virgin and a
martyr, by a monk of Bergavinck; her relics were brought from England to
Bergs. The facts were collected from her brethren with religious care,
especially from the conductor of these relics from England. After the
history of the translation, and a panegyric on 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 particularises, with a certain complacency, all
the knavish modes they resorted to, to carry off those in question. None
then objected to this sort of robbery, because the gratification of the
ruling passion had made it worth while to supply the market.

There is a history, by a monk of Cluny, 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; wherein the author protests to
advance nothing but facts; having himself seen, or learnt from other
witnesses, all he relates. It was not difficult for him to gain his
information, since it was to the monastery of St. Juan de la Penna that
the holy relics were transported, and those who brought them were two
monks of that house. His minute detail of circumstances, he has
authenticated by giving the names of persons and places; and the account
was written for the great festival immediately instituted 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 that were concerted to carry it off; with the itinerary
of the two monks who accompanied the holy remains; during which they
were not a little cheered in their long and hazardous journey by visions
and miracles.

Another has written a history of what he terms the translation of the
relics of St. Majean to the monastery of Villemagne. _Translation_ is,
in fact, only a softened expression for the robbery committed on the
relics of the saints, by two monks who carried them off secretly, to
enrich their monastery; and they did not stick at any artifice, or lie,
to achieve their undertaking. They imagined every thing was permitted to
get possession of these fragments of mortality, which now had become
such an important branch of commerce. They even regarded their
possessors with a hostile eye. Such was the religious opinion from the
ninth to the twelfth century. Our Canute commissioned his agent at Rome
to purchase St. Augustine’s arm for one hundred talents of silver and
one of gold! a much greater sum, observes Granger, than the finest
statue of antiquity would then have 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 necessary to enforce obedience. To raise our admiration,
Theofroy, abbot of Epternac, relates 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 in under a religious pretext. “It
is not to be supposed that the saints are desirous of such a profusion
of gold and silver. They wish not that we should raise to them
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 for their writings,
the liquid gold to decorate the letters, nor the precious stones to
embellish their covers, while you have such little care for the
ministers.” The pious writer has not forgotten _himself_, in his
partnership-account with the _saints_.

Bayle observes, the Roman church not being able to deny that there have
been false relics which have wrought miracles, they reply that the good
intentions of those believers who have recourse to them, obtained from
God the reward for their good faith! In the same spirit, when it was
shown that three bodies of the same saint are said to exist in several
places, and that therefore they could not all 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 intolerance of good sense.

Prince Radzivil was so much affected by the Reformation being spread in
Lithuania, that he went in person to pay the Pope all personal honours.
On this occasion his holiness presented him with a precious box of
relics. On his return home, some monks entreated the prince’s permission
to try the effects of them on a demoniac, who hitherto had resisted
every exorcism. They were brought into the church with solemn pomp,
accompanied by an innumerable crowd, and deposited on the altar. After
the usual conjurations, which were unsuccessful, the relics were
applied. The demoniac instantly recovered. The people called out _a
miracle!_ and the Prince raising his hands and eyes to heaven, felt his
faith confirmed. During this transport of pious joy, he observed that a
young gentleman, who was keeper of his treasure of relics, smiled, and
by his motions ridiculed the miracle. The Prince, indignantly, took the
young keeper of the relics to task; who, on promise of pardon, gave the
following _secret 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 similar to those that were lost. He hoped he
might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of
rubbish was eulogized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of
expelling demons. It was by the assistance of this box that the Prince
discovered the gross impositions of the monks and demoniacs, and
Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lutheran.

Frederick the Elector, surnamed _the Wise_, was an indefatigable
collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him,
solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for our _wise_
Elector; but the times had changed! He was advised to resign this
business; the relics for which he desired payment they were willing _to
return_; that since the Reformation of Luther, the price of such ware
had considerably fallen; and that they would be more esteemed, and find
a _better market_ in Italy than in Germany!

In his “Traité preparatif à l’Apologie pour Herodote,” c. 39, Stephens
says, “A monk of St. Anthony, having been at Jerusalem, saw there
several relics, among which was a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost,
as sound and entire as it had ever been; the snout of the seraphim that
appeared to St. Francis; one of the nails of a cherubim; one of the ribs
of the _Verbum caro factum_, (the Word was made flesh,) some rays of the
star that appeared to the three kings of the east; a phial of St.
Michael’s sweat, when he was fighting against the devil; a hem of
Joseph’s garment, which he wore when he cleaved wood, &c. All which
things,” observes our treasurer of relics, “I have brought with me home
very devoutly.” Henry III. who was deeply tainted with the superstition
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 acquainted them that the great master of the
knights templars had sent him a phial containing _a small portion of the
sacred 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 on the following day, and, adds the
historian, 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, dedicating it to God and St.
Edward.”

In his life of Henry VIII. Lord Herbert notices the _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 unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king’s
commissioners, who, upon surrender of any foundation, undertook to pay
the debts, refusing to pay the price again;” that is, they did not
choose to repay the _forty pounds, to receive a piece of the finger of
St. Andrew_. About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a
South-Sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Road of Grace,
at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace, and a
far-famed relic at Hales in Gloucestershire, of the blood of Christ, was
at the same time exhibited. It was showed 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 pilgrim at
length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the _blood of a duck_,
renewed every week, and put into a phial; one side of which was
_opaque_, and the other _transparent_; either side of which was turned
to the pilgrim which the monk thought proper. The success of the pilgrim
depended on the oblations he had made. Those who were scanty in their
offerings, were the longest in getting a sight of the blood. When a man
was in despair he usually became generous.


THE END.


W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

-----

Footnote 1:

The discipline of the augurs is of very ancient date, having been
prohibited by Moses, in Leviticus. The cup put in Joseph’s sack, was
that used by Joseph to take auguries by. In its more general
signification, augury comprises all the different kinds of divination,
which Varrow distinguishes into four species of augury, according to
the four elements; namely, _pyromancy_, or augury by fire;
_aeromancy_, or augury by the air; _hydromancy_, or augury by the
water; and _geomancy_, or augury by the earth.—See DIVINATION. The
Roman augurs took their presages concerning futurity from birds,
beasts, and the appearances of the heavens, &c.

Footnote 2:

See AUGURS.

Footnote 3:

A coal starting out of the fire _prognosticates_ either a purse or a
coffin, as the imagination may figure either one or the other
represented upon it: the death-watch, a species of ticking spider, the
inseparable companion of old houses and old furniture, is, when heard,
a _sure_ prognostic of a death in the family: the sediment of the
sugar, in the form of froth, rising to the top of a cup of tea, is an
_infallible_ presage of the person going to receive money: the itching
of the palm of the hand, which is to be immediately rubbed on wood,
“that it may come to good,” or on brass, “that it may come to pass,”
&c. is the _certain_ foreboding of being about to have money paid or
otherwise transferred.

Footnote 4:

These are but a very small proportion of the minor species of
superstitions which influence weak and uninstructed minds in all
countries. The vulgar, even in the most enlightened periods, are not
entirely exempt from belief in the powers of sorcery and magic, and
other fantastical and imaginary agencies, such as Exorcisms, Charms,
and Amulets. It is pleasing, however, to contrast the present times,
in which there is almost an extinction of these delusions, with ages
not very remote. It is only 182 years, (counting from 1819) since
great numbers of persons were condemned to death, in the ordinary
course of law, and executed for witchcraft, in England; and only 119
years (from the same date) since the like disgraceful proceedings took
place in Scotland. The like trials, convictions, and executions, took
place in New England, in the end of the 17th century. See _Evelyn’s
Memoirs_, vol. xi. p. 35.

Footnote 5:

Du Cange has remarked, that the common expression, “_May this piece of
bread choke me!_” originates with this custom. The anecdote of Earl
Godwin’s death by swallowing a piece of bread, in making this
asseveration, is recorded in our history. If it be true, it was a
singular misfortune.

Footnote 6:

Dr. Fludd, or, as he stated himself in Latin, _De Fluctibus_, was the
second son of Sir Thomas Fludd, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth,
was born at Milgate in Kent; and died at his own house in
Coleman-Street, September 8, 1637. He was a strenuous supporter of the
Rosicrucian philosophy; was considered a man of some eminence in his
profession, and by no means an insignificant writer.

Footnote 7:

Melancthon was also a believer in judicial astrology, and an
interpreter of dreams. Richelieu and Mazarine were so superstitious as
to employ and pension Morin, another pretender to astrology, who cast
the nativities of these two able politicians. Nor was Tacitus himself,
who generally appears superior to superstition, untainted with this
folly, as may appear from the twenty-second chapter of the sixth book
of his Annals.

Footnote 8:

The noted THUMERSEN, in the seventeenth century, was invested at
Berlin with the respective offices of printer to the court,
bookseller, almanack-maker, astrologer, chemist, and first physician.
Messengers daily arrived from the most respectable houses in Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and even from England, for the purpose of
consulting him respecting the future fortunes of new-born infants,
acquainting him with the hour of their nativity, and soliciting his
advice and directions as to their management. Many volumes of this
singular correspondence are still preserved in the Royal library at
Berlin. He died in high reputation and favour with his superstitious
contemporaries; and his astrological Almanack is still published in
some of the less enlightened provinces of Germany.

Footnote 9:

I so well remember the Chaldean predictions to Pompey, to Crassus, and
to this same Cæsar, that none of them should die, but full of years
and glory, and in his house, that I am surprised that there are yet
some persons capable to believe those, whose predictions are every day
contradicted and refuted by the court.

Footnote 10:

Antipater and Achinapolus have shewn, that Genethliology should rather
be founded on the time of the conception than on that of the birth.

Footnote 11:

Astrologers and wise men of the present day, thanks to a statute or
two in the civil code, limit their star-gazing faculties to the making
of calendars or almanacks.

Footnote 12:

In 1523, the astrologers having prophesied incessant rains and fearful
floods, the abbot of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, built a house on
Harrow-the-Hill, and stored it with provisions. Many persons followed
his example and repaired to high places. However, no extraordinary
floods appearing, the disappointed soothsayers pacified the people by
owning themselves mistaken just one hundred years in their
calculation.—HALL.

Footnote 13:

From this art of Solomon, exhibited through the medium of a ring or
seal, we have the eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon,
and record the potency of its sway over the various orders of
_demons_, or of genii, who are supposed to be the invincible
tormentors or benefactors of the human race.

Footnote 14:

The discovery of the virtues of the Peruvian bark may here serve as an
instance. The story goes, that an Indian (some say a monkey) being ill
of a fever, quenched his thirst at a pool of water, strongly
impregnated with the bark from some trees having accidentally fallen
into it, and that he was in consequence cured.

Footnote 15:

John Atkins, author of the Navy Surgeon: 1742.

Footnote 16:

Turner, in his collection of Cases, p. 406, gives one of a woman who
died hydrophobical, from a mad dog biting her gown; and of a young man
who died raving mad, from the scratch of a cat, four years after the
accident.

Footnote 17:

This species of delusion reminds us of the Florentine quack, who gave
the countryman his pills, which were to enable him to find his lost
ass. The pills beginning to operate on his road home, obliged him to
retire into a wood, where he actually did find his ass. The clown, as
a matter of course, soon spread the report of the wonderful success of
the empiric, who, no doubt, in consequence of this circumstance,
reaped an ample reward from the proprietors of strayed cattle.

Footnote 18:

James the First wrote a philippic against it, entitled a
“COUNTERBLASTE TO TOBACCO,” in which the royal author, with more
prejudice than dignity, informs his loving subjects, that “_it is a
custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, painfull to the
braine, dangerous to the lungs; and in the black stinking fume
thereof, nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that
is bottomlesse_.”

Footnote 19:

The prohibition of the bath was numbered among the restrictions to
which certain priestesses were bound by the rigid rules of their
order.

Footnote 20:

An eminent physician of the fourth century, born at Pergamus, or,
according to others, at Sardis, where he resided for some time.

Footnote 21:

Called Amidenus, from the place of his birth, flourished at
Alexandria, about the end of the fifth century.

Footnote 22:

The word Alchymy seems to be compounded of the Arabic augmentative
particle _al_, and the Latin Kemia or Greek χημια, chemistry. This
etymology, however, is objected to by some, who deny the Arabians any
share in the composition of the word; urging that _alchemia_ occurs in
an author who wrote before the Europeans had any commerce with the
Arabians, or the Arabians any learning, _i. e._ before the time of
Mahomet.

Footnote 23:

Philosoph. Magazine, Vol. vi. p. 383.

Footnote 24:

Descartes imagined that he had found out a diet that would prolong his
life five hundred years.

Footnote 25:

Quædam opera magica mulieribus perfecta fuère, sicut de productione
aquarum reperimus apud Chaldæos; si decem Virgines se ornent,
vestimenta rubra inducant, saltent ita ut una altera impellat, idque
progrediendo et retrogrediendo, digitos denique versus solem certis
signis extendant, ad finem perducta illâ actione, aquas illici et
prodire dicunt. Sic scribunt, si quatuor mulieres in terga jaceant, et
pedes suas cum composione versus cœlum extendant, certa verba, certos
item gestus, adhibeat illas turpi hac actione grandinem decidentem
avertere.—_Tiedman’s “Disputatio de quæstione, quæ fuerit artium
magicarum origo.”_

Footnote 26:

This method of solving the above problem is supported by the authority
of many fathers of the church.

Footnote 27:

Amasis cum frui Amplexibus Ladices nequiret impotentem sese ab ea
redditum contendebat pertinacissime. Vide Herodotum, lib. 2.

Footnote 28:

It is clearly shewn by the earliest records, that the ancients were in
the possession of many powerful remedies; thus Melampus of Argos, the
most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is said to
have cured one of the Argonauts of sterility, by administering the
rust of iron in wine for ten days; and the same physician used
Hellebore as a purge, on the daughters of King Prœtus, who were
afflicted with melancholy. Venesection was also a remedy of very early
origin, for Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the
daughter of Damethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in
both arms. Opium, or a preparation of the poppy, was certainly known
in the earliest ages; and it was probably opium that Helen mixed with
wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of
_nepenthe_, (Odyss. Δ,) to drive away their cares, and increase their
hilarity; and this conjecture receives much support from the fact,
that the _nepenthe_ of Homer was obtained from the Egyptian Thebes,
(whence the Tincture of Opium has been called _Thebaic_ Tincture;) and
if the opinion of Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumæan Sibyll never
sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of
the juice of the cherry-laurel.

“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro,
Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit
Excussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategat
Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.”
ÆNEID, l. vi. v. 78.

There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the
influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular
powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those
of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus
tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were
consulted by the chief gentlemen, or _caciques_, as they are called,
took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and
then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in
consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after
having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and
delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during
their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative
powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among
the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus
threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress
her desires. The sea onion, or _squill_, was administered by the
Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of
Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in
the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to
wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor
applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up
with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

Footnote 29:

Æis addatur quod scripsit Necepsos, draconem radios habentem
insculptum, collo suspensum, ita ut contingeret ventriculum, mire ei
prodesse.—TIEDMAN.

Footnote 30:

On the subject of the Jewish magii, the works of Buxtorf, Lightfoot,
Bekker, and others, have been consulted.

Footnote 31:

Les Juifs croient que Lilis veut faire mourir les garçons dans le
huitième jour après leur naissance, et les filles dans le
vingt-unième. Voici le remède des Juifs Allemans pour se préserver de
ce danger. Ils tirent des traits en ronde avec de la craϊe, ou avec
des charbons de bois, sur les quatre murs de la chambre oû est
l’accouchée, et ils écrivent sur chaque trait: _Adam! Eve! qui Lilis
se retire_. Ils écrivent aussi sur le parti de chambre les noms des
trois anges qui président à la médicine, _Senai_, _Sansenai_, et
_Sanmangelof_, ainsi que Lilis elle-même leur apprit qu’il falloit
faire lorsqu’elle espéroit de les faire tout tous noyer dans la mer.
_Elias, as quoted by Becker._

Footnote 32:

This remarkable confession may be found in Menange’s. Observations sur
la langue Françoise, Part II. p. 110.

Footnote 33:

This was written in 1560, and before the era of revolutions had
commenced even among ourselves. He penetrated into the important
principle merely by the force of his own meditation.

Footnote 34:

Vide Lectures on Phrenology, by Drs. Gall and Spurtzheim.

Footnote 35:

This word is supposed to be formed from the Greek ονομα, name; and
μαντεια, divination. There is in fact something rather singular in the
etymology; for, in strictness, Onomancy should rather signify
divination by asses, being formed from oνos, _asinus_ and μαντεια. To
signify divination by names it should be Onomatomancy.

Footnote 36:

PYTHIAN or PYTHIA, in antiquity, the priestess of Apollo, by whom he
delivered oracles. She was thus called from the god himself, who was
styled _Apollo Pythius_, from his slaying the serpent Python; or as
others will have it, αποτου ποδεσδαι, because Apollo, the sun, is the
cause of rottenness; or, according to others, from πυνδανομαι, _I
hear_, because people went to hear and consult his oracles.—The
priestess was to be a pure virgin. She sat on the covercle, or lid, of
a brazen vessel, mounted on a tripod; and thence, after a violent
enthusiasm, she delivered her oracles; _i. e._ she rehearsed a few
ambiguous and obscure verses, which were taken for oracles.

All the Pythiæ did not seem to have had the same talent at poetry, or
to have memory enough to retain their lesson.—Plutarch and Strabo make
mention of poets, who were kept in by Jupiter, as interpreters.

The solemn games instituted in honor of Apollo, and in memory of his
killing the serpent Python with his arrows, were called Pythia or
Pythian games.

Footnote 37:

The art of knowing the humour, temperament, or disposition of a
person, from observation of the lines of the face, and the character
of its members or features, is called Physiognomy. Baptist Porta and
Robert Fludd, are among the top modern authors, and it has since been
revived by Lavater, on this subject. The ancient authors are the
Sophist Adamantius, and Aristotle, whose treatise on Physiognomy is
translated into Latin by de Lacuna.

Footnote 38:

When the thoughts are much troubled, and when a person sleeps without
the circumstance of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as when
he nods in his chair; it is very difficult, as Hobbes remarks, to
distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes
himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily
suspects it to have been a dream.—LEVIATHAN, par. i. c. 1.

Footnote 39:

For the notion of this threefold soul, read the following verses
attributed to Ovid:—

Bis duo sunt nomini: MANES, CARO, SPIRITUS, UMBRA:
Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt,
Terra legit CARNEM, tumulum circumvolat UMBRA
Orcus habet MANES, SPIRITUS astra petit.

Footnote 40:

Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, book xv. chap. 39; also Discourse on
Devils and Spirits, chap. 28.

Footnote 41:

Philosophy of Apparitions, by Dr. Hibbert.

Footnote 42:

“As I sat in the pantry last night counting my spoons,” says the
butler, in the Comedy of the Drummer, “the candle, methought, burnt
blue, and the spay’d bitch look’d as if she saw something.”

Footnote 43:

The Friend, a series of Essays, by S. T. Coleridge, Esq. vol. I, page
248.

Footnote 44:

“There is a species to whom, in the Highlands, is ascribed the
guardianship or superintendence of a particular clan, or family of
distinction. Thus the family of Gurlinbeg was haunted by a spirit
called Garlen Bodachar; that of the Baron of Kilcharden by Sandear or
Red Hand, a spectre, one of whose hands is as red as blood; that of
Tullochgorum by May Moulach, a female figure, whose left hand and arm
were covered with hair, who is also mentioned as a familiar attendant
upon the clan Grant.” _Sir_ WALTER SCOTT’S BORDER MINSTRELSY.

Footnote 45:

In the year 1646 two hundred persons were tried, condemned, and
executed for witchcraft, at the Suffolk and Essex assizes; and in 1699
five persons were tried by special commission, at Paisley, in
Scotland, condemned and burnt alive, for the same imaginary crime.—
(See HOWELL’S _Letters_.)

Footnote 46:

It is rather an unfortunate circumstance that all the books, (and
there were several,) which treated of the arts of conjuration, as they
were practised among the ancients, not one is now extant, and all that
we know upon that subject has been collected from isolated facts which
have been incidentally mentioned in other writings. From these,
however, it would appear, that many of the deceptions which still
continue to excite astonishment, were then generally known.

Footnote 47:

Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart.

Footnote 48:

Glanvil was chaplain to his Majesty, and a fellow of the Royal
Society, and author of the work in question, entitled “SADUCESMUS
TRIUMPHATUS, or a full and plain evidence concerning witches and
apparitions,” in two parts, “proving partly by holy Scripture, and
partly by a choice collection of modern relations, the real existence
of apparitions, spirits, and witches.” Printed 1700.

Footnote 49:

Webster, another divine, wrote “Criticisms and interpretations of
Scripture,” against the existence of witches, &c.

Footnote 50:

This story must be accounted for some way or other; or belief in the
appearance of the apparitions must be credited. Either the miller
himself was the murderer, or he was privy to it, unperceived by the
actual perpetrators; or he might be an accomplice before the fact, or
at the time it was committed, but without having inflicted any of the
wounds. The compunctious visitings of his troubled conscience, the
dread of the law in the event of the disclosure, coming from any one
but himself, doubtless made him resolve to disburthen his guilty mind;
and pretended supernatural agency was the fittest channel that
presented itself for the occasion. That Walker and Sharp never
confessed any thing, ought not to be matter of wonder. There was no
evidence against them but the miller’s apparition, which, they were
well assured, would not be likely to appear against them; they were
determined therefore not to implicate themselves; well knowing, that
however the case stood, Graime the miller could not be convicted,
because, in the event of his story of the apparition being rejected,
they must be acquitted, although suspicion and the circumstances of
the pregnancy, &c. were against them; and again, if the miller had
declared himself, after this, as evidence for the crown, his
testimony, if taken at all, would be received with the greatest
caution and distrust; the result might, in fact, have been, that the
strongest suspicions would have fallen upon him as the real murderer
of Anne Clarke; for which, under every consideration of the case, he
might not unjustly have been tried, condemned, and executed. The
statement of Lumley proves nothing that was not generally known. That
Anne Clarke was murdered was well known, but by whom nobody ever knew.
She afterwards appeared to the miller; and why to the miller in
preference to any one else, unless he had had the least hand in it?
and with the exception of Sharp and Walker, the only living being who
was thoroughly acquainted with the catastrophe, but who himself was,
in fact, as guilty as either of the other two.

The Mr. Fanhair, who swore he saw “the likeness of a child standing
upon Walker’s shoulders” during the trial, ought to have been freely
blooded, cupped, purged, and dieted, for a month or two, until the
vapours of his infantile imagination had learned to condense
themselves within their proper focus: then, and then only, might his
oath have been listened to. Besides, the _child_ could only be a
fœtus, at what period of gestation we are not told, and to have
appeared in proper form, it ought to have had its principal appendage
with it—the mother. The two, however, might have been two heavy for
Walker’s shoulders: nevertheless, the gallantry of the times,
certainly, would not have refused her a seat in the dock alongside her
guilty paramour; or a chair in the witness’-box, if she came to appear
as evidence against him.

Footnote 51:

By Mumia is here understood, that which was used by some ancient
physicians for some kind of implanted spirit, found chiefly in
carcases, when the infused spirit is fled; or kind of sympathetic
influence, communicated from one body to another, by which magnetic
cures, &c. were said to be performed. Now, however, deservedly
exploded.

Footnote 52:

For a curious specimen of this _odium theologicum_, see the “Censure”
of the Sorbonne on Marmontel’s Belisarius.

Footnote 53:

This king is invoked in the first part of Shakspeare’s play of Henry
the Sixth, after the following manner:—

“You speedy helpers that are substitutes
Under the lordly monarch of the North—
Appear!”

Footnote 54:

This description is taken from an ancient Latin poem, describing the
lamentable vision of a devoted hermit, and supposed to have been
written by St. Bernard, in the year 1238; a translation of which was
printed for private distribution by William Yates, Esq. of Manchester.

Footnote 55:

Sir Thomas Brown, who thinks that this view may be confirmed by
expositions of Holy Scripture, remarks, that, “whereas it is said,
thou shalt not offer unto devils; (the original word is seghuirim),
that is, rough and hairy goats, because in that shape the devil must
have often appeared, as is expounded by the Rabin; as Tremellius hath
also explained; and as the word Ascemah, the god of Emath, is by some
conceived.”

Footnote 56:

See an interesting dissertation on this subject, in Douce’s
Illustrations of Shakspeare, Vol. i. p. 382. It is also noticed in the
Border Minstrelsy, Vol. ii. p. 197.

Footnote 57:

Dio of Syracuse was visited by one of the furies in person, whose
appearance the soothsayers regarded as indicative of the death which
occurred of his son, as well as his own dissolution.

Footnote 58:

Sir Walter Scott has supposed that this mythological account of the
duergar bears a remote allusion to real history, having an ultimate
reference to the oppressed Fins, who, before the arrival of the
invaders, under the conduct of Odin, were the prior possessors of
Scandinavia. The followers of this hero saw a people, who knew how to
work the mines of the country better than they did; and, therefore,
from a superstitious regard, transformed them into spirits of an
unfavourable character, dwelling in the interior of rocks, and
surrounded with immense riches.—_Border Minstrelsy_, v. ii. p. 179.

Footnote 59:

It is said that, in Orkney, they were often seen clad in complete
armour.—_Brand’s description of Orkney._ 8vo. Edinburgh, 1701. p. 63.

Footnote 60:

In Germany, probably for similar reasons, the dwarfs have acquired the
name of _elves_—a word, observes Mr. Douce, derived from the Teutonic
of _helfin_, which etymologists have translated _juvare_.

Footnote 61:

Minstrelsy of the Scottish border, vol. ii. page 215.

Footnote 62:

Before dismissing this subject of fairies, I shall slightly advert to
the strange blending which took place of Grecian and Teutonic fables.
“We find,” says Sir Walter Scott, “the elves accordingly arrayed in
the costume of Greece and Rome, and the fairy queen and her attendants
transformed into Diana and her nymphs, and invested with their
attributes and appropriate insignia.” Mercury was also named by
Harsenet, in the year 1602, the prince of the fairies.

Footnote 63:

“He would chafe exceedingly,” says Scot, “if the maid or good wife of
the house, having compassion of his nakedness, laid ani cloths for him
besides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing
fee. For in that case he saith, what have we here? Hempton hamten,
here will I never more tread nor stampen.”

Footnote 64:

Bellus speaks with contempt of this petty instance of malevolence to
the human race: “stones are thrown down from the air,” he remarks,
“which do no harm, the devils having little strength, and being mere
scarecrows.” So much for the origin of meteoric stones.

Footnote 65:

See Hibbert’s Philosophy of Apparitions.

Footnote 66:

Grellman’s History of the Gipsies.

Footnote 67:

Grellman’s opinion seems extremely plausible, that they are of the
lowest class of Indians, called _suders_, and that they left India
when Timur Bag ravaged that country in 1408 and 1409, putting to death
immense numbers of all ranks of people.

Footnote 68:

Mr. Marsden first made inquiries among the English Gipsies concerning
their language.—_Vide_ Archæologia, vol. ii. p. 382–386. Mr. Coxe
communicated a vocabulary of words used by those of Hungary.—See the
same vol. of the Archæologia, p. 387. Vocabularies of the German
Gipsies may be seen in Grellman’s Book. Any person wishing to be
convinced of this similarity of language, and being possessed of a
vocabulary of words used in Hindostan, may be satisfied of its truth
by conversing with the first Gipsey he meets.

Footnote 69:

Margaret Finch, a celebrated modern adventuress, was buried October
24, 1740, at Beckenham, in Kent. This remarkable person lived to the
age of 109 years. She was one of the people called Gipsies, and had
the title of their queen. After travelling over various parts of the
kingdom, during the greater part of a century, she settled at Norwood,
a place notorious for vagrants of this description, whither her great
age and the fame of her fortune-telling, attracted numerous visitors.
From a habit of sitting on the ground, with her chin resting on her
knees, the sinews at length became so contracted, that she could not
rise from that posture. After her death they were obliged to inclose
her body in a deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two
mourning coaches, a sermon was preached on the occasion; and a great
concourse of people attended the ceremony.

There is an engraved portrait of Margaret Finch, from a drawing made
in 1739. Her picture adorned the sign of a house of public
entertainment in Norwood, called the Gipsey house, which was situated
in a small green, in a valley, surrounded by woods. On this green, a
few families of Gipsies used to pitch their tents, during the summer
season. In winter they either procure lodgings in London, or take up
their abode in barns, in some of the more distant counties. In a
cottage that adjoined the Gipsey house, lived an old woman,
granddaughter of Queen Margaret, who inherited her title. She was
niece of Queen Budget, who was buried (_see Lysons_, vol i. p. 107.)
at Dulwich, in 1768. Her rank seemed, however, to be merely titular;
nor do we find that the gipsies paid her any particular respect, or
that she differed in any other manner than that of being a
householder, from the rest of her tribe.—

Footnote 70:

A private dwelling house.

Footnote 71:

The woods, hedges or bushes.

Footnote 72:

His wench, &c.

Footnote 73:

Clothes.

Footnote 74:

Hens.

Footnote 75:

Turkies.

Footnote 76:

Young Pigs.

Footnote 77:

Geese.

Footnote 78:

Plunder, goods, or money acquired by theft.

Footnote 79:

Legend is also used by authors to signify the words or letters
engraven about the margins, &c. of coins. It is also applied to the
inscription of medals, of which it serves to explain the figures or
devices. In point of strictness the legend differs from the
inscription, the latter properly signifying words instead of figures
placed on the reverse of a medal.

Footnote 80:

See Geddes’s Tracts.

Footnote 81:

See Geddes’s Tracts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


Page Changed from Changed to

96 ‏תגת‎ ‏הגה‎.

143 μαν εια μαντεια

144 χλησων κληδων

149 γε γη

152 υαvτεiα μαντεια

171 ΦΥΣΙΟΤΝΩΜΙΑ ΦΥΣΙΟΓΝΩΜΙΑ

229 ‏קסומי נאלי באוכ‎ ‏קסומי נא לי באוב‎

‏מעינן‎ ‏מעונן‎

230 ‏הש‎ ‏נחש‎

232 ‏חיבר חבר‎ ‏נחשחובר חבר‎

‏חיבר חבר‎ ‏חובר חבר‎

ἐπὰδων ἐπάδων

233 ‏חיבר‎ ‏חובר‎

‏מחכם אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים ‏אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר
חובר חברים‎ חברים מחכם‎

‏חיבר חבר‎ ‏חובר חבר‎

234 ‏שיאל אוב‎ ‏שואל אוב‎

Ἐγγαϛείμυθος Ἐγγαστρίμυθος

‏שיאל אוב‎ ‏שואל אוב‎

Ἐγγαϛείμυθος Ἐγγαστρίμυθος

235 ‏כהם אוב‎ ‏בהם אוב‎

‏באיב‎ ‏באוב‎

Ἐγγαϛείμυθῳ Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ

236 ‏בעלת איב‎ ‏בעלת אוב‎

‏בעלת איב‎ ‏בעלת אוב‎

‏איב‎ ‏אוב‎

‏חיבר חבר‎ ‏חובר חבר‎

237 ‏ירעני‎ ‏ידעני‎

‏יעשח איב וידעני‎ ‏יעשה אוב וידעני‎

‏איב‎ ‏אוב‎

‏בעלת בוא‎ ‏בעלת אוב‎

239 ‏איב כעלוה‎ ‏בעליה אוב‎

‏הטהגים‎ ‏המהגים‎

243 ‏הרטמים‎ ‏חרטמים‎

‏מבשפים‎ ‏מכשפים‎

‏חבטים‎ ‏חכמים‎

‏להש‎ ‏להט‎

‏דהט חדב‎ ‏להט חרב‎

245 ‏בלהטוהם‎ ‏קסומי־נא לי‎

‏איב‎ ‏אוב‎

Ohh Obh

μαντεϊον μαντεῖον

Ὅπ θεασάμπνυον τὸ γύναιον ἅνδρa Ὅτι θεασάμενον τὸ γύναιον ἄνδρa
246 σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται, σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται,
καὶ πρὸς την ὅψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ καὶ πρὸς την ὄψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ
σὺ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σάουλος σύ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σαοῦλος

247 ‏אלהום‎ ‏אלהים‎

Elochim Elohim

249 ‏ידץ‎ ‏ידע‎

250 διπλοίδα ἱεραπκηὶ διπλοΐδα ἱερατικήν

251 Θεῷτηὶ μερηὶ ὅμοιος Θεῷ τὴν μορφὴν ὅμοιος

292 ‏חולם‎ ‏עולם‎

holam gnolam

‏לחולם‎ ‏לעולם‎

leholam legnolam

256 θoοὺς θεοὺς

1. Note that in the author's Hebrew transliterations 'hh' indicates a
hard 'aitch'.
2. Note that in the author's Hebrew transliterations 'gn' indicates a
(silent) hard glottal-stop.
3. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
4. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
5. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end
of the last chapter.
6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
7. Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.