II. The inevitable consequence of this failure is that

the magicians and the Thaumaturgists have never been separable from their books, and have been merely the slaves of their formularies — truly apprentices ; and indeed, they were only mechanically acquainted with the processes of their art ; without even distinguishing how far super-
CONCLUSION. 269
stition, or the intention of imposing it, had mingled with superfluous ceremonies. The most ancient, as well as the most recent, present this characteristic trait. If they did not then invent anything, — from whom, it may be asked, did they procure their secrets, their formularies, their books, and their entire art? We have to investigate this branch of knowledge, as every other, precipitated into indeterminate times, when the sciences were either invented or perfected. They afterwards fell into decay, and only were kept in view by incoherent lights, shed upon the minds of men, who retained the employ- ment of them, without understanding their nature. We are here thrown back into that antiquity, which history points out confusedly, but which is anterior to history.
in. In attempting to penetrate, by the aid of some probable conjectures, into that darkness which the course of time renders progressively more profound, a remarkable trait has struck us ; namely, that the opinion, which as- cribed a celestial origin to miracles and to magic, was not in the main the consequence of an imposition, but was born of that piety which desired that every kind of excel- lence should emanate from the Divinity.* It was main- tained by the figurative style, which naturally amal- gamated itself with religious sentiments. Thus, among the legislators, who have had recourse to this venerated
* As far as respects real miracles no other opinion can be formed: for what idea can be formed of a miracle if not that published by Dr. Thomas Reid, namely, that it is "an effect that indicates a power of a higher order than the powers which we are accustomed directly to trace in phenomena more familiar to us, but a Power, whose continued and ever present existence, it is atheism only that denies." — Ed.
270 CONCLUSION,
agent, for giving stability to their operations, the most ancient, at least, are not supported by falsehood ; they have not professed that execrable doctrine, that it is necessary to deceive men. It was in good faith, that they declared themselves inspired ; and that they offered their marvellous works as proofs of their mission, because they humbly ascribed their knowledge, their virtues, their sublime views, and their conceptions above the vulgar, to the Divinity.
These great men, were they now alive, would adopt a very different method. He who would seek, in the present day, in the art of working apparent miracles an instrument for acting upon civilization, would soon fail, because he would knowingly deceive : his dishonesty, contrary to morality, would be contrary to the spirit of progressive civilization, which ever tends to draw aside the veil behind which nature and truth are often con- cealed.
Must it then be concluded that, deprived of this powerful lever, legislation must be powerless over the minds of men, and that to direct their actions, it has need of a perpetual coercive force ? We reply, certainly not ! Whatever may be said of our own times, it is not necessary to deceive men, when it is intended to conduct them to happiness. The man who deceives thinks less of serving those whom he deceives, than of upholding his own pride, securing his personal ambition, or satisfying his cupidity. The desire of being governed is natural to men, when they become members of the social state : it increases among nations in the ratio of their knowledge and well-being and, in proportion to the
CONCLUSION. 271
reasonable desire of enjoying undisturbed the advantages that they possess. It is with this sentiment that the politician, whose intentions are upright, will find a foun- dation to build upon, not less solid than that which he would acquire from an assumed intervention of Divinity ; a foundation which will never give way, nor leave him exposed to the inconveniences, nor to the serious conse- quences that religious fiction leads to ; and which will never threaten to overthrow what is founded upon rea- son, and upon the progress of natural perceptions.
" Kings ! reign for your people !" and then to the astonished observer, who shall ask to what illusions their obedience and your power are due, you can reply, " Here is all our magic ; here is the source of all our apparent miraculous power."
ILLUSTRATIONS.
UPON DRAGONS AND MONSTROUS SERPENTS, MENTIONED IN A GREAT MANY FABULOUS OR HISTORICAL NARRATIONS.
There are, perhaps, in the empire of the marvellous, no narrations that occur more frequently than those which describe some winged dragon, or serpent of monstrous dimensions, devouring men and animals, until by the force of heroic valour or some miraculous power, the country which is exposed to its ravages is delivered. Dupuis* and M. Alex. Lenoir f have imagined these narrations to be the figurative expressions of the astronomical themes of Perseus, the liberator of Andromeda : threatened by a sea monster ; of Orion, the vanquisher of a serpent, emblems in themselves of the victory of virtue over vice, the principle of good over the principle of evil. They regard it also, when divested of every allegorical veil, as intimating the victory of the spring sun over the winter sun, and of light over darkness.
It is under a different aspect that we propose to treat of the same subject : we shall inquire how it is that an astronomical
* Dupuis. Origine de tous les cultes.
t A. Lenoir. Du Dragon de Mets, appelé Graouilly, &c. Mémoires de l'Académie Celtique, tome u. pp. 1 — 20.
VOL. II. T
274
ILLUSTRATIONS.
emblem has been so frequently converted into a positive subject of history ; what are the causes which have, in different places, intro- duced such remarkable variations into the legend; and, finally, why other myths or other facts have been added or united to this legend, which originally were unconnected with it ?
§ I.
OF REPTILES ATTAINING UNCOMMON GROWTH, WHICH HAVE EXISTED, AND GIVEN RISE TO, OR CONFIRMED, MANY OF THESE NARRATIONS.
We may inquire whether there ever existed reptiles of a propor- tion extraordinary enough, or animals of a form monstrous enough, to have given a natural origin to the legends now under discussion ?
Finding, from traditions, that Dragons abounded in the depart- ment of Finisterre, and were overcome by supernatural power, an observer* has conjectured that these monsters, the subjects of so many legends, might have been the crocodiles that formerly infested the rivers of France, and the bones of which have been found in several parts. The thing is not impossible.
In 1815 a crocodile was killed near Calcutta, which measured from seventeen to eighteen English feet in length, armed with enormous claws. " At the place Avhere the head and body joined, was a swelling, from which rose four bony projections ; and upon the back were three other rows of similar projections, and four more diverged from the tail, the end of which formed a kind of saw, being, indeed, the continuation of these projecting files. "f These swellings and these bony projections were looked upon as defensive weapons ; and similar projections were also found upon the famous Tarasque of Tarascon, and many other dragons or serpents represented in the pictures of different legends. Here, again,
* M. de Fréminville. Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tom. xi. pp. 8, 9.
f Bibliothèque Universelle (Genève). Sciences, tome iv. pp. 222, 223.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 27o
the fiction may possibly have originated in the paintings exagge- rating a fact actually observed.
It was rumoured several years ago, that a monstrous reptile had been killed at the foot of Mount Salevus ; and ravages proportioned to its size were attributed to it. Its carcase was examined by naturalists, first at Geneva, and then at Paris. It proved to be nothing more than an adder of extraordinary growth, but in no respect prodigious. In a less enlightened age, we may ask, would more have been necessary for furnishing to the mountaineers of Savoy a marvellous narration, which would have been confirmed by tradition, and probably enlarged in each succeeding generation ?
History has perpetuated the memory of the serpent which Regulus opposed in Africa with engines of war. It was
probably a boa constrictor, which had attained to its greatest degree of growth.* Allowing something to exaggeration, the
* The tradition, as Livy relates it, make this gigantic Numidian Python one hundred and twenty-feet long ; and it also stated that, when destroyed, the decomposing carcass of the monster so polluted the air, that the Romans were forced to move their camp. The skin was nevertheless seemed, and sent in triumph to Rome. This serpent, the African Python, differs in some of its features from the hoa of South America, hut it resembles that reptile in its hulk, its muscular strength, and the absence of poison fangs. In South America the boa is viewed with horror, on account of a belief that it exercises a certain influence over the destiny of any one who injures it, and, sooner or later, he suifers severely for his audacity. a Allowing for exaggeration, it is probable that the Python referred to in Livy was of unusual size, and hence well calculated to strike terror into the minds of those unaccustomed to the sight of enormous serpents. It seized its victim with its teeth, but, like the boa, destroyed it by pressure within the folds of its powerful body. The author of The Seasons describes this Python —
From his dark abode, Which e'en Imagination fears to tread, At noon, forth issuing, gathers up his train In orbs immense. — Thomson. — Ed.
1 Smith's Illustrations of South America.
T 2
276 ILLUSTRATIONS.
natural language of surprise and fear, it becomes easy to reconcile the tradition here with truth and probability.
It is not always necessary to assume much exaggeration. A modern traveller* assures us that in the mountains of Galese serpents from thirty to forty feet in length are still to be met with. Aelianf mentions also, in several places, reptiles of an extraordi- nary size. Let us recollect that an almost religious respect for the lives of certain animals must formerly, particularly in India, have permitted serpents, by growing old, to attain to enormous dimensions. This respect for serpents was seconded by a super- stition which, in the temples, consecrated many of the reptiles. Alexander admired in one of the Indian temples a serpent which is recorded to have been seventy cubits in length. % We know that sacred dragons were revered at Babylon, at Melita in Egypt, in Phrygia, in Italy, in Epirus,|| in Thessaly,§ in Bocetia, and in the grotto of Trophonius.^[
Finally we may remark, that the progress of civilization has ex- pelled these immense reptiles from countries where they formerly lived in peace. There are no longer any boas in Italy. Solinus places them in Calabria ; and describes their habits with so much correctness, that we cannot suppose he meant to speak of mon- strous adders. Pliny confirms this narration, by mentioning a boa in the body of which a child was found. It was killed in the Vatican, in the reign of Claudius, only thirty years, at the utmost, before the period in which Pliny wrote.**
These positive facts would prepare credulity to confound with history every legend in which, for some other reason, these monstrous serpents figured.
* Paulin de Saint-Barthélemi. Voyages, 8çc. tome 1, p. 479.
f Aelian. De Nat. Anim. passim, et lib. xvi. cap. xxxix.
% Ibid. lib. xv. cap. xn.
|| Ibid. Ub. xi. cap. xvn. ; lib. xn. cap. xxxix. ; lib. xi. cap. ccxvi.
§ Aristotel. De Mirabil. Auscult.
^ Suidas, verbo Trophonios.
** Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. vm. cap. xiv.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 277
§ II.
OTHER LEGENDS FOUNDED ON FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS TAKEN IN A PHYSICAL SENSE.
Winged serpents, the true dragons, could never have existed : and the supposed union of two natures so opposite, must have been originally merely a hieroglyphic — an emblem. But poetry, which lives in figures, did not hesitate to possess itself of the image as well as the expression. The reptiles which tore to pieces the sons of Laocoon were called dragons by Q. Calabar ;* Virgil gives them the name of dragons and serpents by turns. f The two terms seem to have been synonymous in poetical lan- guage ; and the wings with which dragons have been endowed are only the emblem of the promptitude with which the serpent poun- ces upon its prey ; or in order to seize it, raises itself to the tops of trees. Here, as in many other circumstances, the figurative expressions have taken place of the reality in the belief of the vulgar, not less ignorant than eager after the marvellous.
The modern Greek gives the expressive name of winged ser- pents to the locusts, which carried on the wind, in vast swarms, devastate his harvests. f This metaphor is probably ancient ; and may have originated many fables and narrations respecting the existence of ivinged serpents.
But these explanations and those connected with physical facts are vague ; and sometimes purely local. They cannot be applied
* Q. Calaber. De Bella Trojano. lib. xm. — A Greek poet, who lived in the third century, and wrote a poem in fourteen books, as a continuation of the Illiad.— Ed.
f " Irnmensis orbibus, angues" (vers. 204.) " Serpens ampleœus uterque," (vers. 214.) " Delubra ad summa dracones," (vers. 225.)
Virgil. JEneid. lib. ir. % Pouqueville. Voyage dans la Grèce, tome in. pp. 562, 563.
278 ILLUSTRATIONS.
to a precise fact, which is found in every country and in every age, related in the same manner, and with only slight variations in the principal circumstances.
§ III.
MONSTROUS SERPENTS MAY BE EMBLEMATIC OF RAVAGES PRODUCED BY INUNDATIONS.
St. Romanus, in 720, or 628, delivered the town of Rouen from a monstrous dragon. " This miracle," it is said in a disser- tation upon the miracle of St. Romaine and La Gargouille is only the emblem of another miracle of St Romanus, who made the Seine which had overflowed its banks, and was about to inundate the town, return to its bed. The very name given by the people to this fabulous serpent is another proof of it : gargouille is derived from gurges, etc.*
In support of his opinion, the author quoted a strophe from the hymn of Santeuil :
Tangit exundans aqua civitatem ; Voce Romanus jubet efficaci ; Audiunt fluctus, docilisque cedit Unda jubenti.
In Orleans, also, a town frequently exposed to the ravages of the waters which bathe and fertilize its territories, a ceremony is
* History of the Town of Rouen, by Servin, 1775, 2 vols. 12mo. vol. n, p. 147. — It is more probable that the fable of the destruction of the serpent is founded on the fact of St. Romanus having destroyed the remnant of idola- try, and levelled with the ground temples of Venus, Jupiter, Apollo, and Mer- cury which existed in his diocese. " No traces of this story," says Butler, speaking of the story of the serpent, " are found in any life of this saint nor in any writings before the end of the fourteenth century. The figure of a serpent, called Gargouille, seems here, as in some other towns, originally to have been meant to represent symbolically the devil overcome by Christ." — Ed. Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, Sfc. Oct. 22.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 279
celebrated similar to that which perpetuates the miracle of St. Romanus at Rouen. Indeed a great number of traditions might be quoted in support of this conjecture.
The island of Batz, near St. Pol de Leon, is said to have been desolated by a frightful dragon. St. Pol, who died in 594, by the virtue of his stole and staff precipitated the monster into the sea. Cambry,* who relates this tradition, tells us that the only foun- tain existing in the island of Batz, is alternately either exposed or covered by the tides of the sea. He then relates, that ' ' near the castle of Roche Maurice and the ancient river of Dordoun, a dra- gon devoured men and animals. "f
It seems but natural to suppose that these two narratives are emblematical of the ravages committed by the sea and the waters of the Dordoun.
St. Julian, first Bishop of Mans, in 59, destroyed a horrible dragon at the village of Artins, near Montoir.j This dragon, under the system discussed by us, should represent the inunda- tions of the Loire, which flows in the vicinity. It might be also imaged by a dragon of nine or ten fathoms long, over which, in a cavern by the side of a fountain^ near Vendôme, the hermit St. Biéor Bienheuré, towards the end of the fourth century, triumphed. The inundations of the Scarpe might be represented by the dra- gon who terrified and expelled from an island, the holy Bishop who has bequeathed his name to the town of St. Amand :§ those of the Moselle, by the Graouilli, the monstrous serpent which St.
* Cambry. Travels in the Department of Finisterre, vol. i. pp. 147, 148.
f Ibid. ibid. vol. i. p. 57.
X Moreri. Historical Dictionary, art. Saint Julien. M. Duchemin-La- Cbenaye gives the name of la Roche-Turpin to the scene of this victory. Mé- moires de l' académie Celtique, tome iv, p. 311.
|| M. Duchemin-La-Chenaye. Ibid, pages 308 and following.
§ M. Bottin. Traditions des Dragons volans dans le Nord de la France. Mélanges d' Archéologie. (8vo. Paris, 1831), pp. 161 — 164.
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ILLUSTRATIONS.
Clement overcame at Metz* ; and those of Clain by the dragon of Poitiers, which hid itself near this river, and whose death was a benefit conferred by Saint Radegonde, towards the middle of the sixth century .f
In the same manner may be explained by the inundations of the Rhone, the history of the monster of Tarascon, which in the first century, was bound with the garter of St. Martha, who caused its death ; and the representation of which, called Tarasque, is still carried in procession, in the town, on the morning of the Penticost.J The overflowings of the Garonne would be emble- mized by the dragon of Bordeaux, yielding, in the eleventh century, to the virtue of the Virgin of St. Martial ; and the dragon of St. Bertrand de Comminge, conquered by the Bishop of St. Bertrand in 1076.||
Thus also the dragon from which Saint Marcel delivered Paris,§ and the w inged dragon of the Abbey of Fleury^[ offer images of the overflowing of the Seine and Loire.
Thus, also, at Lima, on the fête day of St. Francis of Assisi, if one observes figuring in the procession an ideal monster called Teras-
* A. Lenoir. Du Dragon de Metz, 8fc. Mémoires de V Académie Celtique, tome ii. p. 1 and following.
f M. Jouyneau-des-Loges. Mémoires de V Académie Celtique, tome v. p. 57.
% Rouvière. Voyage du Tour de la France, 12mo. 1713, pp. 401, 402. — Dulaure. Description des principaux Lieux de la France, tome i. p. 16, art. Tarascon. — Millin. Voyage dans le Midi de la France, 4 vols. 8vo. tome ni. pp. 451 — 553. The figure of the Tarasque may be found in the atlas of the Travels, plate 63 ; it is not, however, very correct.
|| M. Chaudruc. Mémoires de l'Académie Celtique, tome iv. p. 313.
§ Lives of the Saints for every day of the year, 2 vols. 4to. Paris 1734, tome n. p. 84, Life of St. Marcel, 3rd November. — Gregor. Turon. De Gloria Confess, cap. lxxxix. — It is thought St. Marcel occupied the episcopal throne of Paris towards the end of the fourth century.
If Du Cange. Glossar. verbo Draco, 2 . . . tome n. p. 1645.
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con,* it will recal the fact that Lima, situated near the sea, is watered by a river which supplies every house with water. Thus