Chapter XV: Part 15

It has been reported of several famous for their astrologic skill, that they have suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions; this has been reported of _Cardan_, and _Burton_, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.

It is curious to observe the shifts to which astrologers are put when their predictions are not verified. Great _winds_ were predicted, by a famous adept, about the year 1586. No unusual storms, however, happened. Bodin, to save the reputation of the art, applied it as _figure_ to some _revolutions_ in the _state_, and of which there were instances enough at that moment. Among their lucky and unlucky days, they pretend to give those of various illustrious persons and of families. One is very striking.--Thursday was the unlucky day of our Henry VIII. He, his son Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, all died on a Thursday! This fact had, no doubt, great weight in this controversy of the astrologers with their adversaries.[78]

Lilly, the astrologer, is the Sidrophel of Butler. His Life, written by himself, contains so much artless narrative, and so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the truth. In a sketch of the state of astrology in his day, those adepts, whose characters he has drawn, were the lowest miscreants of the town. They all speak of each other as rogues and impostors. Such were Booker, Backhouse, Gadbury; men who gained a livelihood by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as in 1650, nor were they much out of date in the eighteenth century. In Ashmole's Life an account of these artful impostors may be found. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. This seems a true statement of facts. But Lilly informs us, that in his various conferences with _angels_, their voices resembled that of the _Irish_!

The work contains anecdotes of the times. The amours of Lilly with his mistress are characteristic. He was a very artful man, and admirably managed matters which required deception and invention.

Astrology greatly flourished in the time of the civil wars. The royalists and the rebels had their _astrologers_, as well as their _soldiers!_ and the predictions of the former had a great influence over the latter.

On this subject, it may gratify curiosity to notice three or four works, which hear an excessive price. The price cannot entirely be occasioned by their rarity, and I am induced to suppose that we have still adepts, whose faith must be strong, or whose scepticism but weak.

The Chaldean sages were nearly put to the rout by a quarto park of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber, in 1601. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race, and his personalities made them feel more sore. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with "A Defence of Judiciall Astrologye, in answer to a treatise lately published by Mr. John Chamber. By Sir Christopher Heydon, Knight; printed at Cambridge, 1603." This is a handsome quarto of about 500 pages. Sir Christopher is a learned writer, and a knight worthy to defend a better cause. But his Dulcinea had wrought most wonderfully on his imagination. This defence of this fanciful science, if science it may be called, demonstrates nothing, while it defends everything. It confutes, according to the knight's own ideas: it alleges a few scattered facts in favour of astrological predictions, which may be picked up in that immensity of fabling which disgraces history. He strenuously denies, or ridicules, what the greatest writers have said against this fanciful art, while he lays great stress on some passages from authors of no authority. The most pleasant part is at the close, where he defends the art from the objections of Mr. Chamber by recrimination. Chamber had enriched himself by medical practice; and when he charges the astrologers with merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches fire, and shows by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art, by its professors attempting to subsist on it, or for the objections which may be raised against its vital principles, we ought by this argument most heartily to despise the medical science and medical men! He gives here all he can collect against physic and physicians; and from the confessions of Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna and Agrippa, medicine appears to be a vainer science than even astrology! Sir Christopher is a shrewd and ingenious adversary; but when he says he means only to give Mr. Chamber oil for his vinegar, he has totally mistaken its quality.

The defence was answered by Thomas Vicars, in his "Madnesse of Astrologers."

But the great work is by Lilly; and entirely devoted to the adepts. He defends nothing; for this oracle delivers his dictum, and details every event as matters not questionable. He sits on the tripod; and every page is embellished by a horoscope, which he explains with the utmost facility. This voluminous monument of the folly of the age is a quarto valued at some guineas! It is entitled, "Christian Astrology, modestly treated of in three books, by William Lilly, student in Astrology, 2nd edition, 1659." The most curious part of this work is "a Catalogue of most astrological authors." There is also a portrait of this arch rogue, and astrologer: an admirable illustration for Lavater![79]

Lilly's opinions, and his pretended science, were such favourites with the age, that the learned Gataker wrote professedly against this popular delusion. Lilly, at the head of his star-expounding friends, not only formally replied to, but persecuted Gataker annually in his predictions, and even struck at his ghost, when beyond the grave. Gataker died in July, 1654; and Lilly having written in his almanac of that year for the month of August this barbarous Latin verse:--

_Hoc in tumbo jacet presbyter et nebulo!_
Here in this tomb lies a presbyter and a knave!

he had the impudence to assert that he had predicted Gataker's death! But the truth is, it was an epitaph like lodgings to let; it stood empty ready for the first passenger to inhabit. Had any other of that party of any eminence died in that month, it would have been as appositely applied to him. But Lilly was an exquisite rogue, and never at fault. Having prophesied in his almanac for 1650, that the parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, when taken up by a messenger, during the night he was confined, he contrived to cancel the page, printed off another, and showed his copies before the committee, assuring them that the others were none of his own, but forged by his enemies.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: "Day fatality" was especially insisted on by these students, and is curiously noted in a folio tract, published in 1687, particularly devoted to "Remarques on the 14th of October, being the auspicious birth-day of his present Majesty James II.," whose author speaks of having seen in the hands of "that genera scholar, and great astrologer, E. Ashmole," a manuscript in which the following barbarous monkish rhymes were inserted, noting the unlucky days of each month:--

JANUARY Prima dies menses, et septima truncat ut ensis.
FEBRUARY Quarta subit mortem, prosternit tertia fortem.
MARCH Primus mandentem, disrumpit quarta bibentem.
APRIL Denus et undenus est mortis vulnere plenus.
MAY Tertius occidit, et septimus ora relidit.
JUNE Denus pallescit, quindenus foedra nescit.
JULY Ter-decimus mactat, Julii denus labefactat.
AUGUST Prima necat fortem prosternit secunda cohortem.
SEPTEMBER Tertia Septembris, et denus fert mala membris.
OCTOBER Tertius et denus, est sicut mors alienus.
NOVEMBER Scorpius est quintus, et tertius e nece cinctus.
DECEMBER Septimus exanguis, virosus denus et anguis.

The author of this strange book fortifies his notions on "day fatality" by printing a letter from Sir Winstan Churchill, who says, "I have made great experience of the truth of it, and have set down Fryday as my own lucky day; the day on which I was born, christened, married, and I believe will be the day of my death. The day whereon I have had sundry deliverances from perils by sea and land, perils by false brethren, perils of lawsuits, &c. I was knighted (by chance unexpected of myself) on the same day, and have several good accidents happened to me on that day; and am so superstitious in the belief of its good omen, that I choose to begin any considerable action that concerns me on the same day."]

[Footnote 79: Lilly was at one time a staunch adherent of the Roundheads, and "read in the stars" all kinds of successes for them. His great feat was a prediction made for the month of June, 1645--"If now we fight, a victory stealeth upon us." A fight did occur at Naseby, and concluded the overthrow of the unfortunate Charles the First. The words are sufficiently ambiguous; but not so much so, as many other "prophecies" of the same notable quack, happily constructed to shift with changes in events, and so be made to fit them. Lilly was opposed by Wharton, who saw in the stars as many good signs for the Royal Army; and Lilly himself began to see differently as the power of Cromwell waned. Among the hundreds of pamphlets poured from the press in the excited days of the great civil wars in England, few are more curious than these "strange and remarkable predictions," "Signs in the Sky," and "Warnings to England," the productions of star-gazing knaves, which "terrified our isle from its propriety."]

ALCHYMY.

Mrs. Thomas, the Corinna of Dryden, in her Life, has recorded one of the delusions of alchymy.

An infatuated lover of this delusive art met with one who pretended to have the power of transmuting lead to gold; that is, in their language, the _imperfect_ metals to the _perfect one_. The hermetic philosopher required only the materials, and time, to perform his golden operations. He was taken, to the country residence of his patroness. A long laboratory was built, and that his labours might not be impeded by any disturbance, no one was permitted to enter into it. His door was contrived to turn on a pivot; so that, unseen and unseeing, his meals were conveyed to him without distracting the sublime meditations of the sage.

During a residence of two years, he never condescended to speak but two or three times in a year to his infatuated patroness. When she was admitted into the laboratory, she saw, with pleasing astonishment, stills, cauldrons, long flues, and three or four Vulcanian fires blazing at different corners of this magical mine; nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable figure of the dusty philosopher. Pale and emaciated with daily operations and nightly vigils, he revealed to her, in unintelligible jargon, his progresses; and having sometimes condescended to explain the mysteries of the arcana, she beheld, or seemed to behold, streams of fluid and heaps of solid ore scattered around the laboratory. Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of lead. Already this unfortunate lady had expended the half of her fortune in supplying the demands of the philosopher. She began now to lower her imagination to the standard of reason. Two years had now elapsed, vast quantities of lead had gone in, and nothing but lead had come out. She disclosed her sentiments to the philosopher. He candidly confessed he was himself surprised at his tardy processes; but that now he would exert himself to the utmost, and that he would venture to perform a laborious operation, which hitherto he had hoped not to have been necessitated to employ. His patroness retired, and the golden visions resumed all their lustre.

One day, as they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack followed by another, loud as the report of cannon, assailed their ears. They hastened to the laboratory; two of the greatest stills had burst, and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are told that, after another adventure of this kind, this victim to alchymy, after ruining another patron, in despair swallowed poison.

Even more recently we have a history of an alchymist in the life of Romney, the painter. This alchymist, after bestowing much time and money on preparations for the grand projection, and being near the decisive hour, was induced, by the too earnest request of his wife, to quit his furnace one evening, to attend some of her company at the tea-table. While the projector was attending the ladies, his furnace blew up! In consequence of this event, he conceived such an antipathy against his wife, that he could not endure the idea of living with her again.[80]

Henry VI., Evelyn observes in his Numismata, endeavoured to recruit his empty coffers by _alchymy_. The _record_ of this singular proposition contains "the most solemn and serious account of the feasibility and virtues of the _philosopher's stone_, encouraging the search after it, and dispensing with all statutes and prohibitions to the contrary." This record was probably communicated by Mr. Selden to his beloved friend Ben Jonson, when the poet was writing his comedy of the Alchymist.

After this patent was published, many promised to answer the king's expectations so effectually, that the next year he published _another patent_; wherein he tells his subjects, that the _happy hour_ was drawing nigh, and by means of THE STONE, which he should soon be master of, he would pay all the debts of the nation in real _gold and silver_. The persons picked out for his new operators were as remarkable as the patent itself, being a most "miscellaneous rabble" of friars, grocers, mercers, and fishmongers!

This patent was likewise granted _authoritate Parliamenti_; and is given by Prynne in his _Aurum Reginæ_, p. 135.

Alchymists were formerly called _multipliers_, although they never could _multiply_; as appears from a statute of Henry IV. repealed in the preceding record.

"None from henceforth shall use to _multiply_ gold or silver, or use the _craft of multiplication_; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony." Among the articles charged on the Protector Somerset is this extraordinary one:--"You commanded _multiplication_ and _alcumestry_ to be practised, thereby _to abate the king's coin_." Stowe, p. 601. What are we to understand? Did they believe that alchymy would be so productive of the precious metals as to _abate_ the value of the coin; or does _multiplication_ refer to an arbitrary rise in the currency by order of the government?

Every philosophical mind must be convinced that alchymy is not an art, which some have fancifully traced to the _remotest times_; it may be rather regarded, when opposed to such a distance of time, as a modern imposture. Cæsar commanded the treatises of alchymy to be burnt throughout the Roman dominions: Cæsar, who is not less to be admired as a philosopher than as a monarch.

Gibbon has this succinct passage relative to alchymy:--"The ancient books of alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or the abuse of chemistry. In that immense register where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutations of metals; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China, as in Europe, with equal eagerness and equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder; and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts to deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry."

Elias Ashmole writes in his diary--"May 13, 1653. My father Backhouse (an astrologer who had adopted him for his son, a common practice with these men) lying sick in Fleet-street, over against St. Dunstan's church, and not knowing whether he should live or die, about eleven of the clock, told me in _syllables_ the true matter of the _philosopher's stone_, which he bequeathed to me as a _legacy_." By this we learn that a miserable wretch knew the art of _making gold_, yet always lived a beggar; and that Ashmole really imagined he was in possession of the _syllables of a secret_! He has, however, built a curious monument of the learned follies of the last age, in his "Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum." Though Ashmole is rather the historian of this vain science than an adept, it may amuse literary leisure to turn over this quarto volume, in which he has collected the works of several English alchymists, subjoining his commentary. It affords a curious specimen of Rosicrucian mysteries; and Ashmole relates several miraculous stories. Of the philosopher's stone, he says he knows enough to hold his tongue, but not enough to speak. This stone has not only the power of transmuting any imperfect earthy matter into its utmost degree of perfection, and can convert the basest metals into gold, flints into stone, &c.; but it has still more occult virtues, when the arcana have been entered into by the choice fathers of hermetic mysteries. The vegetable stone has power over the natures of man, beast, fowls, fishes, and all kinds of trees and plants, to make them flourish and bear fruit at any time. The magical stone discovers any person wherever he is concealed; while the angelical stone gives the apparitions of angels, and a power of conversing with them. These great mysteries are supported by occasional facts, and illustrated by prints of the most divine and incomprehensible designs, which we would hope were intelligible to the initiated. It may be worth showing, however, how liable even the latter were to blunder on these mysterious hieroglyphics. Ashmole, in one of his chemical works, prefixed a frontispiece, which, in several compartments, exhibited Phoebus on a lion, and opposite to him a lady, who represented Diana, with the moon in one hand and an arrow in the other, sitting on a crab; Mercury on a tripod, with the scheme of the heavens in one hand, and his caduccus in the other. These were intended to express the materials of the stone, and the season for the process. Upon the altar is the bust of a man, his head covered by an astrological scheme dropped from the clouds; and on the altar are these words, "Mercuriophilus Anglicus," _i.e._, the English lover of hermetic philosophy. There is a tree, and a little creature gnawing the root, a pillar adorned with musical and mathematical instruments, and another with military ensigns. This strange composition created great inquiry among the chemical sages. Deep mysteries were conjectured to be veiled by it. Verses were written in the highest strain of the Rosicrucian language. _Ashmole_ confessed he meant nothing more than a kind of _pun_ on his own name, for the tree was the _ash_, and the creature was a _mole_. One pillar tells his love of music and freemasonry, and the other his military preferment and astrological studies! He afterwards regretted that no one added a second volume to his work, from which he himself had been hindered, for the honour of the family of Hermes, and "to show the world what excellent men we had once of our nation, famous for this kind of philosophy, and masters of so transcendant a secret."

Modern chemistry is not without a _hope_, not to say a _certainty_, of verifying the golden visions of the alchymists. Dr. Girtanner, of Gottingen, not long ago adventured the following prophecy: "In the _nineteenth century_ the transmutation of metals will be generally known and practised. Every chemist and every artist will _make gold_; kitchen utensils will be of silver, and even gold, which will contribute more than anything else to _prolong life_, poisoned at present by the oxides of copper, lead, and iron, which we daily swallow with our food." Phil. Mag. vol. vi., p. 383. This sublime chemist, though he does not venture to predict that universal _elixir_, which is to prolong life at pleasure, yet approximates to it. A chemical friend writes to me, that "The _metals_ seem to be _composite bodies_, which nature is perpetually preparing; and it may be reserved for the future researches of science to trace, and perhaps to imitate, some of these curious operations." Sir Humphry Davy told me that he did not consider this undiscovered art an impossible thing, but which, should it ever be discovered, would certainly be useless.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 80: He was assisted in the art by one Williamson, a watchmaker, of Dalton, Lancashire, with whom Romney lived in constant companionship. They were partners in a furnace, and had kept the fire burning for nine months, when the contents of the crucible began to assume the yellow hue which excited all their hopes; a few moments of neglect led to the catastrophe narrated above.]

TITLES OF BOOKS.

Were it inquired of an ingenious writer what page of his work had occasioned him most perplexity, he would often point to the _title-page_. The curiosity which we there would excite, is, however, most fastidious to gratify.

Among those who appear to have felt this irksome situation, are most of our periodical writers. The "Tatler" and the "Spectator," enjoying priority of conception, have adopted titles with characteristic felicity; but perhaps the invention of the authors begins to fail in the "Reader," the "Lover," and the "Theatre!" Succeeding writers were as unfortunate in their titles, as their works; such are the "Universal Spectator," and the "Lay Monastery." The copious mind of Johnson could not discover an appropriate title, and indeed in the first "Idler" acknowledged his despair. The "Rambler" was so little understood, at the time of its appearance, that a French journalist has translated it as "_Le Chevalier Errant_;" and when it was corrected to _L'Errant_, a foreigner drank Johnson's health one day, by innocently addressing him by the appellation of Mr. "Vagabond!" The "Adventurer" cannot be considered as a fortunate title; it is not appropriate to those pleasing miscellanies, for any writer is an adventurer. The "Lounger," the "Mirror," and even the "Connoisseur," if examined accurately, present nothing in the titles descriptive of the works. As for the "World," it could only have been given by the fashionable egotism of its authors, who considered the world as merely a circuit round St. James's Street. When the celebrated father of reviews, _Le Journal des Sçavans_, was first published, the very title repulsed the public. The author was obliged in his succeeding volumes to soften it down, by explaining its general tendency. He there assures the curious, that not only men of learning and taste, but the humblest mechanic, may find a profitable amusement. An English novel, published with the title of "The Champion of Virtue," could find no readers; but afterwards passed through several editions under the happier invitation of "The Old English Baron." "The Concubine," a poem by Mickle, could never find purchasers, till it assumed the more delicate title of "Sir Martyn."

As a subject of literary curiosity, some amusement may be gathered from a glance at what has been doing in the world, concerning this important portion of every book.

The Jewish and many oriental authors were fond of allegorical titles, which always indicate the most puerile age of taste. The titles were usually adapted to their obscure works. It might exercise an able enigmatist to explain their allusions; for we must understand by "The Heart of Aaron," that it is a commentary on several of the prophets. "The Bones of Joseph" is an introduction to the Talmud. "The Garden of Nuts," and "The Golden Apples," are theological questions; and "The Pomegranate with its Flower," is a treatise of ceremonies, not any more practised. Jortin gives a title, which he says of all the fantastical titles he can recollect is one of the prettiest. A rabbin published a catalogue of rabbinical writers, and called it _Labia Dormientium_, from Cantic. vii. 9. "Like the best wine of my beloved that goeth down sweetly, causing _the lips of those that are asleep to speak_." It hath a double meaning, of which he was not aware, for most of his rabbinical brethren talk very much like _men in their sleep_.

Almost all their works bear such titles as bread--gold--silver--roses--eyes, &c.; in a word, anything that signifies nothing.

Affected title-pages were not peculiar to the orientals: the Greeks and the Romans have shown a finer taste. They had their Cornucopias, or horns of abundance--Limones, or meadows--Pinakidions, or tablets--Pancarpes, or all sorts of fruits; titles not unhappily adapted for the miscellanists. The nine books of Herodotus, and the nine epistles of Æschines, were respectively honoured by the name of a Muse; and three orations of the latter, by those of the Graces.

The modern fanatics have had a most barbarous taste for titles. We could produce numbers from abroad, and at home. Some works have been called, "Matches lighted at the Divine Fire,"--and one "The Gun of Penitence:" a collection of passages from the fathers is called "The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary:" we have "The Bank of Faith," and "The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit:" one of these works bears the following elaborate title: "Some fine Biscuits baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation." Sometimes their quaintness has some humour. Sir Humphrey Lind, a zealous puritan, published a work which a Jesuit answered by another, entitled "A Pair of Spectacles for Sir Humphrey Lind." The doughty knight retorted, by "A Case for Sir Humphrey Lind's Spectacles."

Some of these obscure titles have an entertaining absurdity; as "The Three Daughters of Job," which is a treatise on the three virtues of patience, fortitude, and pain. "The Innocent Love, or the Holy Knight," is a description of the ardours of a saint for the Virgin. "The Sound of the Trumpet," is a work on the day of judgment; and "A Fan to drive away Flies," is a theological treatise on purgatory.

We must not write to the utter neglect of our title; and a fair author should have the literary piety of ever having "the fear of his title-page before his eyes." The following are improper titles. Don Matthews, chief huntsman to Philip IV. of Spain, entitled his book "The Origin and Dignity of the Royal House," but the entire work relates only to hunting. De Chantereine composed several moral essays, which being at a loss how to entitle, he called "The Education of a Prince." He would persuade the reader in his preface, that though they were not composed with a view to this subject, they should not, however, be censured for the title, as they partly related to the education of a prince. The world was too sagacious to be duped, and the author in his second edition acknowledges the absurdity, drops "the magnificent title," and calls his work "Moral Essays." Montaigne's immortal history of his own mind, for such are his "Essays," has assumed perhaps too modest a title, and not sufficiently discriminative. Sorlin equivocally entitled a collection of essays, "The Walks of Richelieu," because they were composed at that place; "The Attic Nights" of Aulus Gellius were so called, because they were written in Attica. Mr. Tooke, in his grammatical "Diversions of Purley," must have deceived many.

A rhodomontade title-page was once a great favourite. There was a time when the republic of letters was over-built with "Palaces of Pleasure," "Palaces of Honour," and "Palaces of Eloquence;" with "Temples of Memory," and "Theatres of Human Life," and "Amphitheatres of Providence;" "Pharoses, Gardens, Pictures, Treasures." The epistles of Guevara dazzled the public eye with their splendid title, for they were called "Golden Epistles;" and the "Golden Legend" of Voragine had been more appropriately entitled leaden.

They were once so fond of novelty, that every book recommended itself by such titles as "A new Method; new Elements of Geometry; the new Letter Writer, and the new Art of Cookery."

To excite the curiosity of the pious, some writers employed artifices of a very ludicrous nature. Some made their titles rhyming echoes; as this one of a father, who has given his works under the title of _Scalæ Alæ animi_; and _Jesus esus novus Orbis_. Some have distributed them according to the measure of time, as one Father Nadasi, the greater part of whose works are _years_, _months_, _weeks_, _days_, and _hours_. Some have borrowed their titles from the parts of the body; and others have used quaint expressions, such as--_Think before you leap_--_We must all die_--_Compel them to enter_. Some of our pious authors appear not to have been aware that they were burlesquing religion. One Massieu having written a moral explanation of the solemn anthems sung in Advent, which begin with the letter O, published this work under the punning title of _La douce Moelle, et la Sauce friande des os Savoureux de l'Avent_.[81]

The Marquis of Carraccioli assumed the ambiguous title of _La Jouissance de soi-même_. Seduced by the epicurean title of self-enjoyment, the sale of the work was continual with the libertines, who, however, found nothing but very tedious essays on religion and morality. In the sixth edition the marquis greatly exults in his successful contrivance; by which means he had punished the vicious curiosity of certain persons, and perhaps had persuaded some, whom otherwise his book might never have reached.

If a title be obscure, it raises a prejudice against the author; we are apt to suppose that an ambiguous title is the effect of an intricate or confused mind. Baillet censures the Ocean Macromicrocosmic of one Sachs. To understand this title, a grammarian would send an inquirer to a geographer, and he to a natural philosopher; neither would probably think of recurring to a physician, to inform one that this ambiguous title signifies the connexion which exists between the motion of the waters with that of the blood. He censures Leo Allatius for a title which appears to me not inelegantly conceived. This writer has entitled one of his books the _Urban Bees_; it is an account of those illustrious writers who flourished during the pontificate of one of the Barberinis. The allusion refers to the _bees_ which were the arms of this family, and Urban VIII. is the Pope designed.

The false idea which a title conveys is alike prejudicial to the author and the reader. Titles are generally too prodigal of their promises, and their authors are contemned; but the works of modest authors, though they present more than they promise, may fail of attracting notice by their extreme simplicity. In either case, a collector of books is prejudiced; he is induced to collect what merits no attention, or he passes over those valuable works whose titles may not happen to be interesting. It is related of Pinelli, the celebrated collector of books, that the booksellers permitted him to remain hours, and sometimes days, in their shops to examine books before he purchased. He was desirous of not injuring his precious collection by useless acquisitions; but he confessed that he sometimes could not help being dazzled by magnificent titles, nor being mistaken by the simplicity of others, which had been chosen by the modesty of their authors. After all, many authors are really neither so vain, nor so honest, as they appear; for magnificent, or simple titles, have often been given from the difficulty of forming any others.

It is too often with the Titles of Books, as with those painted representations exhibited by the keepers of wild beasts; where, in general, the picture itself is made more striking and inviting to the eye, than the inclosed animal is always found to be.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: Religious parody seems to have carried no sense of impropriety with it to the minds of the men of the 15th and 16th centuries. Luther was an adept in this art, and the preachers who followed him continued the practice. The sermons of divines in the following century often sought an attraction by quaint titles, such as--"Heaven ravished"--"The Blacksmith, a sermon preached at Whitehall before the King," 1606. Beloe, in his _Anecdotes of Literature_, vol. 6, has recorded many of these quaint titles, among them the following:--"_The Nail hit on the head_, and driven into the city and cathedral wall of Norwich. By John Carter, 1644." "_The Wheel turned_ by a voice from the throne of glory. By John Carter, 1647." "_Two Sticks made one_, or the excellence of Unity. By Matthew Mead, 1691." "_Peter's Net let downe_, or the Fisher and the Fish, both prepared towards a blessed haven. By R. Matthew, 1634." In the middle of the last century two religious tracts were published, one bearing the alarming title, "Die and be Damned," the other being termed, "A sure Guide to Hell." The first was levelled against the preaching of the Methodists, and the title obtained from what the author asserts to be the words of condemnation then frequently applied by them to all who differed from their creed. The second is a satirical attack on the prevalent follies and vices of the day, which form the surest "guide," in the opinion of the author, to the bottomless pit.]

LITERARY FOLLIES.

The Greeks composed lipogrammatic works; works in which one letter of the alphabet is omitted. A lipogrammatist is a letter-dropper. In this manner Tryphiodorus wrote his Odyssey; he had not [Greek: alpha] in his first book, nor [Greek: beta] in his second; and so on with the subsequent letters one after another. This Odyssey was an imitation of the lipogrammatic Iliad of Nestor. Among other works of this kind, Athenæus mentions an ode by Pindar, in which he had purposely omitted the letter S; so that this inept ingenuity appears to have been one of those literary fashions which are sometimes encouraged even by those who should first oppose such progresses into the realms of nonsense.

There is in Latin a little prose work of Fulgentius, which the author divides into twenty-three chapters, according to the order of the twenty-three letters of the Latin alphabet. From A to O are still remaining. The first chapter is with out A; the second without B; the third without C; and so with the rest. There are five novels in prose of Lopes de Vega; the first without A, the second without E, the third without I, &c. Who will attempt to verify them?

The Orientalists are not without this literary folly. A Persian poet read to the celebrated Jami a gazel of his own composition, which Jami did not like: but the writer replied, it was notwithstanding a very curious sonnet, for the _letter Aliff_ was not to be found in any one of the words! Jami sarcastically replied, "You can do a better thing yet; take away _all the letters_ from every word you have written."

To these works may be added the _Ecloga de Calvis_, by Hugbald the monk. All the words of this silly work begin with a C. It is printed in Dornavius. _Pugna Porcorum_; all the words beginning with a P, in the Nugæ Venales. _Canum cum cattis certamen_; the words beginning with a C: a performance of the same kind in the same work. Gregorio Leti presented a discourse to the Academy of the Humorists at Rome, throughout which he had purposely omitted the letter R, and he entitled it the exiled R. A friend having requested a copy, as a literary curiosity, for so he considered this idle performance, Leti, to show that this affair was not so difficult, replied by a copious answer of seven pages, in which he had observed the same severe ostracism against the letter R! Lord North, in the court of James, I., has written a set of Sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in the reign of Edward IV., translated the Moral Proverbs of Christiana of Pisa, a poem of about two hundred lines, the greatest part of which he contrived to conclude with the letter E; an instance of his lordship's hard application, and the bad taste of an age which, Lord Orford observes, had witticisms and whims to struggle with, as well as ignorance.

It has been well observed of these minute triflers, that extreme exactness is the sublime of fools, whose labours may be well called, in the language of Dryden,

Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.

And Martial says,

Turpe est difficiles habere nugas,
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum.

Which we may translate,

'Tis a folly to sweat o'er a difficult trifle,
And for silly devices invention to rifle.

I shall not dwell on the wits who composed verses in the forms of hearts, wings, altars, and true-love knots; or as Ben Jonson describes their grotesque shapes,

A pair of scissors and a comb in verse.

Tom Nash, who loved to push the ludicrous to its extreme, in his amusing invective against the classical Gabriel Harvey, tells us that "he had writ verses in all kinds; in form of a pair of gloves, a pair of spectacles, and a pair of pot-hooks," &c. They are not less absurd, who expose to public ridicule the name of their mistress by employing it to form their acrostics. I have seen some of the latter where, _both sides_ and _crossways_, the name of the mistress or the patron has been sent down to posterity with eternal torture. When _one name_ is made out _four times_ in the same acrostic, the great difficulty must have been to have found words by which the letters forming the name should be forced to stand in their particular places. It might be incredible that so great a genius as Boccaccio could have lent himself to these literary fashions; yet one of the most gigantic of acrostics may be seen in his works; it is a poem of fifty cantos! Ginguené has preserved a specimen in his Literary History of Italy, vol. iii. p.54. Puttenham, in "The Art of Poesie," p. 75, gives several odd specimens of poems in the forms of lozenges, rhomboids, pillars, &c. Puttenham has contrived to form a defence for describing and making such trifling devices. He has done more: he has erected two pillars himself to the honour of Queen Elizabeth; every pillar consists of a base of eight syllables, the shaft or middle of four, and the capital is equal with the base. The only difference between the two pillars consists in this; in the one "ye must read upwards," and in the other the reverse. These pillars, notwithstanding this fortunate device and variation, may be fixed as two columns in the porch of the vast temple of literary folly.

It was at this period, when _words_ or _verse_ were tortured into such fantastic forms, that the trees in gardens were twisted and sheared into obelisks and giants, peacocks, or flower-pots. In a copy of verses, "To a hair of my mistress's eye-lash," the merit, next to the choice of the subject, must have been the arrangement, or the disarrangement, of the whole poem into the form of a heart. With a pair of wings many a sonnet fluttered, and a sacred hymn was expressed by the mystical triangle. _Acrostics_ are formed from the initial letters of every verse; but a different conceit regulated _chronograms_, which were used to describe _dates_--the _numeral letters_, in whatever part of the word they stood, were distinguished from other letters by being written in capitals. In the following chronogram from Horace,

--_feriam sidera vertice_,

by a strange elevation of CAPITALS the _chronogrammatist_ compels even Horace to give the year of our Lord thus,

--feriaM siDera VertIce. MDVI.

The Acrostic and the Chronogram are both ingeniously described in the mock epic of the Scribleriad.[82] The _initial letters_ of the acrostics are thus alluded to in the literary wars:--

Firm and compact, in three fair columns wove,
O'er the smooth plain, the bold _acrostics_ move;
_High_ o'er the rest, the TOWERING LEADERS rise
With _limbs gigantic_, and _superior size_.[83]

But the looser character of the _chronograms_, and the disorder in which they are found, are ingeniously sung thus:--

Not thus the _looser chronograms_ prepare
Careless their troops, undisciplined to war;
With _rank irregular, confused_ they stand,
The CHIEFTAINS MINGLING with the vulgar band.

He afterwards adds others of the illegitimate race of wit:--

To join these squadrons, o'er the champaign came
A numerous race of no ignoble name;
_Riddle_ and _Rebus_, Riddle's dearest son,
And _false Conundrum_ and _insidious Pun_.
_Fustian_, who scarcely deigns to tread the ground,
And _Rondeau_, wheeling in repeated round.
On their fair standards, by the wind display'd,
_Eggs_, _altars_, _wings_, _pipes_, _axes_, were pourtray'd.

I find the origin of _Bouts-rimés_, or "Rhyming Ends," in Goujet's Bib. Fr. xvi. p. 181. One Dulot, a foolish poet, when sonnets were in demand, had a singular custom of preparing the rhymes of these poems to be filled up at his leisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was regretting most the loss of three hundred sonnets: his friends were astonished that he had written so many which they had never heard. "They were _blank sonnets_," he replied; and explained the mystery by describing his _Bouts-rimés_. The idea appeared ridiculously amusing; and it soon became fashionable to collect the most difficult rhymes, and fill up the lines.

The _Charade_ is of recent birth, and I cannot discover the origin of this species of logogriphes. It was not known in France so late as in 1771; in the great Dictionnaire de Trévoux, the term appears only as the name of an Indian sect of a military character. Its mystical conceits have occasionally displayed singular felicity.

_Anagrams_ were another whimsical invention; with the _letters_ of any _name_ they contrived to make out some entire word, descriptive of the character of the person who bore the name. These anagrams, therefore, were either satirical or complimentary. When in fashion, lovers made use of them continually: I have read of one, whose mistress's name was Magdalen, for whom he composed, not only an epic under that name, but as a proof of his passion, one day he sent her three dozen of anagrams all on her lovely name. Scioppius imagined himself fortunate that his adversary _Scaliger_ was perfectly _Sacrilege_ in all the oblique cases of the Latin language; on this principle Sir John _Wiat_ was made out, to his own satisfaction--_a wit_. They were not always correct when a great compliment was required; the poet _John Cleveland_ was strained hard to make _Heliconian dew_. This literary trifle has, however, in our own times produced several, equally ingenious and caustic.

Verses of grotesque shapes have sometimes been contrived to convey ingenious thoughts. Pannard, a modern French poet, has tortured his agreeable vein of poetry into such forms. He has made some of his Bacchanalian songs to take the figures of _bottles_, and others of _glasses_. These objects are perfectly drawn by the various measures of the verses which form the songs. He has also introduced an _echo_ in his verses which he contrives so as not to injure their sense. This was practised by the old French bards in the age of Marot, and this poetical whim is ridiculed by Butler in his Hudibras, Part I. Canto 3, Verse 190. I give an example of these poetical echoes. The following ones are ingenious, lively, and satirical:--

Pour nous plaire, un pl_umet_

_Met_

Tout en usage:

Mais on trouve sou_vent_

_Vent_

Dans son langage.

On y voit des Com_mis_

_Mis_

Comme des Princes,

Après être ve_nus_

_Nuds_

De leurs Provinces.

The poetical whim of Cretin, a French poet, brought into fashion punning or equivocal rhymes. Maret thus addressed him in his own way:--

L'homme, sotart, et _non sçavant_
Comme un rotisseur, _qui lave oye_,
La faute d'autrui, _nonce avant_,
Qu'il la cognoisse, ou _qu'il la voye_, &c.

In these lines of Du Bartas, this poet imagined that he imitated the harmonious notes of the lark: "the sound" is here, however, _not_ "an echo to the sense."

La gentille aloüette, avec son tirelire,
Tirelire, à lire, et tireliran, tire
Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu,
Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu.

The French have an ingenious kind of Nonsense Verses called _Amphigouries_. This word is composed of a Greek adverb signifying _about_, and of a substantive signifying _a circle_. The following is a specimen, elegant in the selection of words, and what the French called richly rhymed, but in fact they are fine verses without any meaning whatever. Pope's Stanzas, said to be written by a _person of quality_, to ridicule the tuneful nonsense of certain bards, and which Gilbert Wakefield mistook for a serious composition, and wrote two pages of Commentary to prove this song was disjointed, obscure, and absurd, is an excellent specimen of these _Amphigouries_.

AMPHIGOURIE.

Qu'il est heureux de se defendre
Quand le coeur ne s'est pas rendu!
Mais qu'il est facheux de se rendre
Quand le bonheur est suspendu!

Par un discours sans suite et tendre,
Egarez un coeur éperdu;
Souvent par un mal-entendu
L'amant adroit se fait entendre.

IMITATED.

How happy to defend our heart,
When Love has never thrown a dart!
But ah! unhappy when it bends,
If pleasure her soft bliss suspends!
Sweet in a wild disordered strain,
A lost and wandering heart to gain!
Oft in mistaken language wooed,
The skilful lover's understood.

These verses have such a resemblance to meaning, that Fontenelle, having listened to the song, imagined that he had a glimpse of sense, and requested to have it repeated. "Don't you perceive," said Madame Tencin, "that they are _nonsense verses_?" The malicious wit retorted, "They are so much like the fine verses I have heard here, that it is not surprising I should be for once mistaken."

In the "Scribleriad" we find a good account of _the Cento_. A Cento primarily signifies a cloak made of patches. In poetry it denotes a work wholly composed of verses, or passages promiscuously taken from other authors, only disposed in a new form or order, so as to compose a new work and a new meaning. Ausonius has laid down the rules to be observed in composing _Cento's_. The pieces may be taken either from the same poet, or from several; and the verses may be either taken entire, or divided into two; one half to be connected with another half taken elsewhere; but two verses are never to be taken together. Agreeable to these rules, he has made a pleasant nuptial _Cento_ from Virgil.[84]

The Empress Eudoxia wrote the life of Jesus Christ, in centos taken from Homer; Proba Falconia from Virgil. Among these grave triflers may be mentioned Alexander Ross, who published "Virgilius Evangelizans, sive Historia Domini et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi Virgilianis verbis et versibus descripta." It was republished in 1769.

A more difficult whim is that of "_Reciprocal Verses_," which give the same words whether read backwards or forwards. The following lines by Sidonius Apollinaris were once infinitely admired:--

_Signa te signa temere me tangis et angis.
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor._

The reader has only to take the pains of reading the lines backwards, and he will find himself just where he was after all his fatigue.[85]

Capitaine Lasphrise, a French self-taught poet, boasts of his inventions; among other singularities, one has at least the merit of _la difficulté vaincue_. He asserts this novelty to be entirely his own; the last word of every verse forms the first word of the following verse:

Falloit-il que le ciel me rendit amoureux
Amoureux, jouissant d'une beauté craintive,
Craintive à recevoir la douceur excessive,
Excessive au plaisir qui rend l'amant heureux;
Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux,
Lieux où plus surement l'ami fidèle arrive,
Arrive sans soupçon de quelque ami attentive,
Attentive à vouloir nous surprendre tous deux.

Francis Colonna, an Italian Monk, is the author of a singular book entitled "The Dream of Poliphilus," in which he relates his amours with a lady of the name of Polia. It was considered improper to prefix his name to the work; but being desirous of marking it by some peculiarity, that he might claim it at any distant day, he contrived that the initial letters of every chapter should be formed of those of his name, and of the subject he treats. This strange invention was not discovered till many years afterwards: when the wits employed themselves in deciphering it, unfortunately it became a source of literary altercation, being susceptible of various readings. The correct appears thus:--POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCUS COLUMNA PERAMAVIT. "Brother Francis Colonna passionately loved Polia." This gallant monk, like another Petrarch, made the name of his mistress the subject of his amatorial meditations; and as the first called his Laura, his Laurel, this called his Polia, his Polita.

A few years afterwards, Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus employed a similar artifice in his ZODIACUS VITÆ, "The Zodiac of Life:" the initial letters of the first twenty-nine verses of the first book of this poem forming his name, which curious particular was probably unknown to Warton in his account of this work.--The performance is divided into twelve books, but has no reference to astronomy, which we might naturally expect. He distinguished his twelve books by the twelve names of the celestial signs, and probably extended or confined them purposely to that number, to humour his fancy. Warton, however, observes, "This strange pedantic title is not totally without a _conceit_, as the author was born at _Stellada_ or _Stellata_, a province of Ferrara, and from whence he called himself Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus." The work itself is a curious satire on the Pope and the Church of Rome. It occasioned Bayle to commit a remarkable _literary blunder_, which I shall record in its place. Of Italian conceit in those times, of which Petrarch was the father, with his perpetual play on words and on his _Laurel_, or his mistress _Laura_, he has himself afforded a remarkable example. Our poet lost his mother, who died in her thirty-eighth year: he has commemorated her death by a sonnet composed of thirty-eight lines. He seems to have conceived that the exactness of the number was equally natural and tender.

Are we not to class among _literary follies_ the strange researches which writers, even of the present day, have made in _Antediluvian_ times? Forgeries of the grossest nature have been alluded to, or quoted as authorities. A _Book of Enoch_ once attracted considerable attention; this curious forgery has been recently translated. The Sabeans pretend they possess a work written by _Adam_! and this work has been _recently_ appealed to in favour of a visionary theory![86] Astle gravely observes, that "with respect to _Writings_ attributed to the _Antediluvians_, it seems not only decent but rational to say that we know nothing concerning them." Without alluding to living writers, Dr. Parsons, in his erudite "Remains of Japhet," tracing the origin of the alphabetical character, supposes that _letters_ were known to _Adam_! Some, too, have noticed astronomical libraries in the Ark of Noah! Such historical memorials are the deliriums of learning, or are founded on forgeries.

Hugh Broughton, a writer of controversy in the reign of James the First, shows us, in a tedious discussion on Scripture chronology, that Rahab was a harlot at _ten_ years of age; and enters into many grave discussions concerning the _colour_ of Aaron's _ephod_, and the language which _Eve_ first spoke. This writer is ridiculed in Ben Jonson's Comedies:--he is not without rivals even in the present day! Covarruvias, after others of his school, discovers that when male children are born they cry out with an A, being the first vowel of the word _Adam_, while the female infants prefer the letter E, in allusion to _Eve_; and we may add that, by the pinch of a negligent nurse, they may probably learn all their vowels. Of the pedantic triflings of commentators, a controversy among the Portuguese on the works of Camoens is not the least. Some of these profound critics, who affected great delicacy in the laws of epic poetry, pretended to be doubtful whether the poet had fixed on the right time for a _king's dream_; whether, said they, a king should have a propitious dream on his _first going to bed_ or at the _dawn of the following morning_? No one seemed to be quite certain; they puzzled each other till the controversy closed in this felicitous manner, and satisfied both the night and the dawn critics. Barreto discovered that an _accent_ on one of the words alluded to in the controversy would answer the purpose, and by making king Manuel's dream to take place at the dawn would restore Camoens to their good opinion, and preserve the dignity of the poet.