Chapter VI: Part 6

A furious controversy raged between two famous scholars from a very laughable but accidental _Erratum_, and threatened serious consequences to one of the parties. Flavigny wrote two letters, criticising rather freely a polyglot Bible edited by Abraham Ecchellensis. As this learned editor had sometimes censured the labours of a friend of Flavigny, this latter applied to him the third and fifth verses of the seventh chapter of St. Matthew, which he printed in Latin. Ver 3. _Quid vides festucam in_ OCULO _fratris tui, et trabem in_ OCULO _tuo non vides_? Ver. 5. _Ejice primùm trabem de_ OCULO _tuo, et tunc videbis ejicere festucam de_ OCULO _fratris tui_. Ecchellensis opens his reply by accusing Flavigny of an _enormous crime_ committed in this passage; attempting to correct the sacred text of the Evangelist, and daring to reject a word, while he supplied its place by another as _impious_ as _obscene_! This crime, exaggerated with all the virulence of an angry declaimer, closes with a dreadful accusation. Flavigny's morals are attacked, and his reputation overturned by a horrid imputation. Yet all this terrible reproach is only founded on an _Erratum_! The whole arose from the printer having negligently suffered the _first letter_ of the word _Oculo_ to have dropped from the form, when he happened to touch a line with his finger, which did not stand straight! He published another letter to do away the imputation of Ecchellensis; but thirty years afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished; the wits were always reminding him of it.

Of all literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the Vulgate, by Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully superintended every sheet as it passed through the press; and, to the amazement of the world, the work remained without a rival--it swarmed with errata! A multitude of scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages, in order to give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these patches; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal infallibility! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to suppress it; a few still remain for the raptures of the biblical collectors; not long ago the bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty guineas--not too much for a mere book of blunders! The world was highly amused at the bull of the editorial Pope prefixed to the first volume, which excommunicates all printers who in reprinting the work should make any _alteration_ in the text!

In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethiopic language, which proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured reason--"They who printed the work could not read, and we could not print; they helped us, and we helped them, as the blind helps the blind."

A printer's widow in Germany, while a new edition of the Bible was printing at her house, one night took an opportunity of stealing into the office, to alter that sentence of subjection to her husband, pronounced upon Eve in Genesis, chap. 3, v. 16. She took out the two first letters of the word HERR, and substituted NA in their place, thus altering the sentence from "and he shall be thy LORD" (_Herr_), to "and he shall be thy FOOL" (_Narr_). It is said her life paid for this intentional erratum; and that some secreted copies of this edition have been bought up at enormous prices.

We have an edition of the Bible, known by the name of _The Vinegar Bible_; from the erratum in the title to the 20th chap. of St. Luke, in which "Parable of the _Vineyard_," is printed, "Parable of the _Vinegar_." It was printed in 1717, at the Clarendon press.

We have had another, where "Thou shalt commit adultery" was printed, omitting the negation; which occasioned the archbishop to lay one of the heaviest penalties on the Company of Stationers that was ever recorded in the annals of literary history.[37]

Herbert Croft used to complain of the incorrectness of our English classics, as reprinted by the booksellers. It is evident some stupid printer often changes a whole text intentionally. The fine description by Akenside of the Pantheon, "SEVERELY great," not being understood by the blockhead, was printed _serenely great_. Swift's own edition of "The City Shower," has "old ACHES throb." _Aches_ is two syllables, but modern printers, who had lost the right pronunciation, have _aches_ as one syllable; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in "aches _will_ throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist wish to preserve is altered, and finally lost.[38]

It appears by a calculation made by the printer of Steevens's edition of Shakspeare, that every octavo page of that work, text and notes, contains 2680 distinct pieces of metal; which in a sheet amount to 42,880--the misplacing of any one of which would inevitably cause a blunder! With this curious fact before us, the accurate state of our printing, in general, is to be admired, and errata ought more freely to be pardoned than the fastidious minuteness of the insect eye of certain critics has allowed.

Whether such a miracle as an immaculate edition of a classical author does exist, I have never learnt; but an attempt has been made to obtain this glorious singularity--and was as nearly realised as is perhaps possible in the magnificent edition of _Os Lusiadas_ of Camoens, by Dom Joze Souza, in 1817. This amateur spared no prodigality of cost and labour, and flattered himself, that by the assistance of Didot, not a single typographical error should be found in that splendid volume. But an error was afterwards discovered in some of the copies, occasioned by one of the letters in the word _Lusitano_ having got misplaced during the working of one of the sheets. It must be confessed that this was an _accident_ or _misfortune_--rather than an _Erratum!_

One of the most remarkable complaints on ERRATA is that of Edw. Leigh, appended to his curious treatise on "Religion and Learning." It consists of two folio pages, in a very minute character, and exhibits an incalculable number of printers' blunders. "We have not," he says, "Plantin nor Stephens amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for another; words parted where they should be joined; words joined which should be severed; words misplaced; chronological mistakes," &c. This unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are we to infer, by such frequent complaints of the authors of that day, that either they did not receive proofs from the printers, or that the printers never attended to the corrected proofs? Each single erratum seems to have been felt as a stab to the literary feelings of the poor author!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: It abounded with other errors, and was so rigidly suppressed, that a well-known collector was thirty years endeavouring ineffectually to obtain a copy. One has recently been added to the British Museum collection.]

[Footnote 38: A good example occurs in _Hudibras_ (Part iii. canto 2, line 407), where persons are mentioned who

"Can by their pangs and _aches_ find
All turns and changes of the wind."

The rhythm here demands the dissyllable _a-ches_, as used by the older writers, Shakspeare particularly, who, in his _Tempest_, makes Prospero threaten Caliban--

"If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with _aches_; make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din."

John Kemble was aware of the necessity of using this word in this instance as a dissyllable, but it was so unusual to his audiences that it excited ridicule; and during the O.P. row, a medal was struck, representing him as manager, enduring the din of cat-calls, trumpets, and rattles, and exclaiming, "Oh! my head _aitches_!"]

PATRONS.

Authors have too frequently received ill treatment even from those to whom they dedicated their works.

Some who felt hurt at the shameless treatment of such mock Mæcenases have observed that no writer should dedicate his works but to his FRIENDS, as was practised by the ancients, who usually addressed those who had solicited their labours, or animated their progress. Theodosius Gaza had no other recompense for having inscribed to Sixtus IV. his translation of the book of Aristotle on the Nature of Animals, than the price of the binding, which this charitable father of the church munificently bestowed upon him.

Theocritus fills his Idylliums with loud complaints of the neglect of his patrons; and Tasso was as little successful in his dedications.

Ariosto, in presenting his Orlando Furioso to the Cardinal d'Este, was gratified with the bitter sarcasm of--"_Dove diavolo avete pigliato tante coglionerie?_" Where the devil have you found all this nonsense?

When the French historian Dupleix, whose pen was indeed fertile, presented his book to the Duke d'Epernon, this Mæcenas, turning to the Pope's Nuncio, who was present, very coarsely exclaimed--"Cadedids! ce monsieur a un flux enragé, il chie un livre toutes les lunes!"

Thomson, the ardent author of the Seasons, having extravagantly praised a person of rank, who afterwards appeared to be undeserving of eulogiums, properly employed his pen in a solemn recantation of his error. A very different conduct from that of Dupleix, who always spoke highly of Queen Margaret of France for a little place he held in her household: but after her death, when the place became extinct, spoke of her with all the freedom of satire. Such is too often the character of some of the literati, who only dare to reveal the truth, when they have no interest to conceal it.

Poor Mickle, to whom we are indebted for so beautiful a version of Camoens' Lusiad, having dedicated this work, the continued labour of five years, to the Duke of Buccleugh, had the mortification to find, by the discovery of a friend, that he had kept it in his possession three weeks before he could collect sufficient intellectual desire to cut open the pages! The neglect of this nobleman reduced the poet to a state of despondency. This patron was a political economist, the pupil of Adam Smith! It is pleasing to add, in contrast with this frigid Scotch patron, that when Mickle went to Lisbon, where his translation had long preceded his visit, he found the Prince of Portugal waiting on the quay to be the first to receive the translator of his great national poem; and during a residence of six months, Mickle was warmly regarded by every Portuguese nobleman.

"Every man believes," writes Dr. Johnson to Baretti, "that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron."

A patron is sometimes oddly obtained. Benserade attached himself to Cardinal Mazarin; but his friendship produced nothing but civility. The poet every day indulged his easy and charming vein of amatory and panegyrical poetry, while all the world read and admired his verses. One evening the cardinal, in conversation with the king, described his mode of life when at the papal court. He loved the sciences; but his chief occupation was the belles lettres, composing little pieces of poetry; he said that he was then in the court of Rome what Benserade was now in that of France. Some hours afterwards, the friends of the poet related to him the conversation of the cardinal. He quitted them abruptly, and ran to the apartment of his eminence, knocking with all his force, that he might be certain of being heard. The cardinal had just gone to bed; but he incessantly clamoured, demanding entrance; they were compelled to open the door. He ran to his eminence, fell upon his knees, almost pulled off the sheets of the bed in rapture, imploring a thousand pardons for thus disturbing him; but such was his joy in what he had just heard, which he repeated, that he could not refrain from immediately giving vent to his gratitude and his pride, to have been compared with his eminence for his poetical talents! Had the door not been immediately opened, he should have expired; he was not rich, it was true, but he should now die contented! The cardinal was pleased with his _ardour_, and probably never suspected his _flattery_; and the next week our new actor was pensioned.

On Cardinal Richelieu, another of his patrons, he gratefully made this epitaph:--

Cy gist, ouy gist, par la mort bleu,
Le Cardinal de Richelieu,
Et ce qui cause mon ennuy
Ma PENSION avec lui.

Here lies, egad, 'tis very true,
The illustrious Cardinal Richelieu:
My grief is genuine--void of whim!
Alas! my _pension_ lies with him!

Le Brun, the great French artist, painted himself holding in his hand the portrait of his earliest patron. In this accompaniment the Artist may be said to have portrayed the features of his soul. If genius has too often complained of its patrons, has it not also often over-valued their protection?

POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT.

Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to display their powers. "It was at Rome," says Gibbon, "on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started to my mind."

Father Malebranche having completed his studies in philosophy and theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and turning over a parcel of books, _L'Homme de Descartes_ fell into his hands. Having dipt into parts, he read with such delight that the palpitations of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which made him the Plato of his age.

Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found, when very young, Spenser's Fairy Queen; and, by a continual study of poetry, he became so enchanted by the Muse, that he grew irrecoverably a poet.

Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise.

Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was first determined by an accident: when young, he frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor; and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! In this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused; he approached the clock-case, and studied its mechanism; what he could not discover he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine; and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius, which thus could form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.

Accident determined the taste of Molière for the stage. His grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The young man lived in dissipation; the father observing it asked in anger, if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the grandfather, "he were as good an actor as Monrose." The words struck young Molière, he took a disgust to his tapestry trade, and it is to this circumstance France owes her greatest comic writer.

Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet, composed _Mélite_ and afterwards his other celebrated works. The discreet Corneille had else remained a lawyer.

We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his philosophy.

Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman, who was dangerously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints during his illness, instead of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order; whence originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits.

Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated declamation against the arts and sciences. A circumstance which decided his future literary efforts.

La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession, or devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely delighted with this poet that, after passing the nights in treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in the day-time to the woods, where, concealing himself, he would recite his verses to the surrounding dryads.

Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book De Sphæra having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of Willoughby's work on birds. The same accident of finding, on the table of his professor, Reaumur's History of Insects, which he read more than he attended to the lecture, and, having been refused the loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet, that he hastened to obtain a copy; after many difficulties in procuring this costly work, its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life. This naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to the microscope.

Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident. "I found a work of De Foe's, entitled an 'Essay on Projects,' from which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life."

I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his _Schoolmaster_, one of the few works among our elder writers, which we still read with pleasure.

At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil, at his apartments at Windsor, a number of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the news of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defence of hard flogging. Dr. Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the secretary. Sir John Mason, adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted Sir William Petre, and adduced, as an evidence, that the best schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed, that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing to the boy's genius, and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Richard Sackville was silent, but when Ascham after dinner went to the queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside, and frankly told him that, though he had taken no part in the debate, he would not have been absent from that conversation for a great deal; that he knew to his cost the truth that Ascham had supported; for it was the perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster that had given him an unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which produced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.

INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS.

Singular inequalities are observable in the labours of genius; and particularly in those which admit great enthusiasm, as in poetry, in painting, and in music. Faultless mediocrity industry can preserve in one continued degree; but excellence, the daring and the happy, can only be attained, by human faculties, by starts.

Our poets who possess the greatest genius, with perhaps the least industry, have at the same time the most splendid and the worst passages of poetry. Shakspeare and Dryden are at once the greatest and the least of our poets. With some, their great fault consists in having none.

Carraccio sarcastically said of Tintoret--_Ho veduto il Tintoretto hora eguale a Titiano, hora minore del Tintoretto_--"I have seen Tintoret now equal to Titian, and now less than Tintoret."

Trublet justly observes--The more there are _beauties_ and _great beauties_ in a work, I am the less surprised to find _faults_ and _great faults_. When you say of a work that it has many faults, that decides nothing: and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable or excellent. You tell me of another, that it is without any faults: if your account be just, it is certain the work cannot be excellent.

It was observed of one pleader, that he _knew_ more than he _said_; and of another, that he _said_ more than he _knew_.

Lucian happily describes the works of those who abound with the most luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity "anemone-words;" for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant, only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the _daisy_; a flower indeed common enough, and without odour.

GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE.

There are many sciences, says Menage, on which we cannot indeed compose in a florid or elegant diction, such as geography, music, algebra, geometry, &c. When Atticus requested Cicero to write on geography, the latter excused himself, observing that its scenes were more adapted to please the eye, than susceptible of the embellishments of style. However, in these kind of sciences, we may lend an ornament to their dryness by introducing occasionally some elegant allusion, or noticing some incident suggested by the object.

Thus when we notice some inconsiderable place, for instance _Woodstock_, we may recall attention to the residence of _Chaucer_, the parent of our poetry, or the romantic labyrinth of Rosamond; or as in "an Autumn on the Rhine," at Ingelheim, at the view of an old palace built by Charlemagne, the traveller adds, with "a hundred columns brought from Rome," and further it was "the scene of the romantic amours of that monarch's fair daughter, Ibertha, with Eginhard, his secretary:" and viewing the Gothic ruins on the banks of the Rhine, he noticed them as having been the haunts of those illustrious _chevaliers voleurs_ whose chivalry consisted in pillaging the merchants and towns, till, in the thirteenth century, a citizen of Mayence persuaded the merchants of more than a hundred towns to form a league against these little princes and counts; the origin of the famous Rhenish league, which contributed so much to the commerce of Europe. This kind of erudition gives an interest to topography, by associating in our memory great events and personages with the localities.

The same principle of composition may be carried with the happiest effect into some dry investigations, though the profound antiquary may not approve of these sports of wit or fancy. Dr. Arbuthnot, in his Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dulness of his task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and observes that "the polite Augustus, the emperor of the world, had neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back!" Those uses of glass and linen indeed were not known in his time. Our physician is not less curious and facetious in the account of the _fees_ which the Roman physicians received.

LEGENDS.

Those ecclesiastical histories entitled Legends are said to have originated in the following circumstance.

Before colleges were established in the monasteries where the schools were held, the professors in rhetoric frequently gave their pupils the life of some saint for a trial of their talent at _amplification_. The students, 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 to be 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 Voragine, Peter Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira, wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought for their materials in the libraries of the monasteries; and, awakening from the dust these 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 these are adorned by a number of cuts, the miracles were perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Tillemont, Fleury, Baillet, Launoi, and Bollandus, cleared away much of the rubbish; the enviable title of _Golden Legend_, by which James de Voragine called his work, has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly describe its character.

When the world began to be more critical in their reading, the monks gave a graver turn to their narratives; and became 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 _Xinoris_, whom he calls a martyr of Antioch; but it appears that Baronius having read in Chrysostom this _word_, which signifies a _couple_ or _pair_, he mistook it for the name of a saint, and contrived to give the most authentic biography of a saint who never existed![39] 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--

"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 with 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 the 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 nations, from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion.

The too curious reader may perhaps require other specimens of the more unlucky inventions of this "Golden Legend;" as characteristic of a certain class of minds, the philosopher will contemn these grotesque fictions.

These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a saint's filthiness. St. Ignatius, say they, delighted to appear abroad with old dirty shoes; he never used a comb, but let his hair clot; and religiously abstained from paring his nails. One saint attained to such piety as to have near three hundred patches on his breeches; which, after his death, were hung up in public as an _incentive to imitation_. St. Francis discovered, by certain experience, that the devils were frightened away by such kinds of breeches, but were 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 they tell a story which may not be very agreeable to fastidious delicacy. Brother Juniper was a gentleman perfectly pious, on 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 the wind 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 Juniper 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 show how a true saint despised clean sheets.

In the life of St. Francis we find, among other grotesque miracles, 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 in the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during the absence of the Virgin Mary, and pittered on his head. He grew so companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to babble, he hushed them by desiring them not to tittle-tattle of their 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 in a window some money collected at the altar, he desired him to take it in his mouth, and throw it on the dung of an ass! St. Philip Nerius was such a _lover of poverty_, that he frequently prayed that God would bring him to that state as to stand in need of a penny, and find nobody 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. A circumstance which seems to have reached Molière, who gives this stroke to the character of his Tartuffe:--

Il s'impute à péché la moindre bagatelle;
Jusques-là qu'il se vint, l'autre jour, s'accuser
D'avoir pris une puce en faisant sa prière,
Et de l'avoir tuée avec trop de colère!

I give a miraculous incident 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 nuns were alarmed at their absence, for no one could give any account of them. In the eve of St. John, a cowherd, passing by them, beheld a beautiful child seated on a cushion between this pair of runaway nuns. He hastened to the abbess with news of these stray sheep; she came and beheld this lovely child playfully seated between these nymphs; they, with blushing countenances, inquired if the second bell had already rung? Both parties were equally astonished to find our young devotees had been there from the Nativity of Jesus to that of St. John. The abbess inquired about the child who sat between them; they solemnly declared they saw no child between them! and persisted in their story!

Such is one of these 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_.

The lives of the saints by Alban Butler is the most sensible history of these legends; Ribadeneira's lives of the saints exhibit more of the legendary spirit, for wanting judgment and not faith, he is more voluminous in his details. The antiquary may collect much curious philosophical information, concerning the manners of the times, from these singular narratives.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 39: See the article on "Literary Blunders," in this volume, for the history of similar inventions, particularly the legend of St. Ursuala and the eleven thousand virgins, and the discovery of a certain St. Viar]

THE PORT-ROYAL SOCIETY.

Every lover of letters has heard of this learned society, which contributed so greatly to establish in France a taste for just reasoning, simplicity of style, and philosophical method. Their "Logic, or the Art of Thinking," for its lucid, accurate, and diversified matter, is still an admirable work; notwithstanding the writers had to emancipate themselves from the barbarism of the scholastic logic. It was the conjoint labour of Arnauld and Nicolle. Europe has benefited by the labours of these learned men: but not many have attended to the origin and dissolution of this literary society.

In the year 1637, Le Maitre, a celebrated advocate, resigned the bar, and the honour of being _Conseiller d'Etat_, which his uncommon merit had obtained him, though then only twenty-eight years of age. His brother, De Sericourt, who had followed the military profession, quitted it at the same time. Consecrating themselves to the service of religion, they retired into a small house near _the Port-Royal_ of Paris, where they were joined by their brothers De Sacy, De St. Elme, and De Valmont. Arnauld, one of their most illustrious associates, was induced to enter into the Jansenist controversy, and then it was that they encountered the powerful persecution of the Jesuits. Constrained to remove from that spot, they fixed their residence at a few leagues from Paris, and called it _Port-Royal des Champs_.[40]

These illustrious recluses were joined by many distinguished persons who gave up their parks and houses to be appropriated to their schools; and this community was called the _Society of Port-Royal_.

Here were no rules, no vows, no constitution, and no cells formed. Prayer and study, and manual labour, were their only occupations. They applied themselves to the education of youth, and raised up little academies in the neighbourhood, where the members of Port-Royal, the most illustrious names of literary France, presided. None considered his birth entitled him to any exemption from their public offices, relieving the poor and attending on the sick, and employing themselves in their farms and gardens; they were carpenters, ploughmen, gardeners, and vine-dressers, as if they had practised nothing else; they studied physic, and surgery, and law; in truth, it seems that, from religious motives, these learned men attempted to form a community of primitive Christianity.

The Duchess of Longueville, once a political chief, sacrificed her ambition on the altar of Port-Royal, enlarged the monastic inclosure with spacious gardens and orchards, built a noble house, and often retreated to its seclusion. The learned D'Andilly, the translator of Josephus, after his studious hours, resorted to the cultivation of fruit-trees; and the fruit of Port-Royal became celebrated for its size and flavour. Presents were sent to the Queen-Mother of France, Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, who used to call it "fruit béni." It appears that "families of rank, affluence, and piety, who did not wish entirely to give up their avocations in the world, built themselves country-houses in the valley of Port-Royal, in order to enjoy the society of its religious and literary inhabitants."

In the solitudes of Port-Royal _Racine_ received his education; and, on his death-bed, desired to be buried in its cemetery, at the feet of his master Hamon. Arnauld, persecuted, and dying in a foreign country, still cast his lingering looks on this beloved retreat, and left the society his heart, which was there inurned.

The Duchess of Longueville, a princess of the blood-royal, was, during her life, the powerful patroness of these solitary and religious men: but her death, in 1679, was the fatal stroke which dispersed them for ever.

The envy and the fears of the Jesuits, and their rancour against Arnauld, who with such ability had exposed their designs, occasioned the destruction of the Port-Royal Society. _Exinanite, exinanite usque ad fundamentum in ea!_--"Annihilate it, annihilate it, to its very foundations!" Such are the terms of the Jesuitic decree. The Jesuits had long called the little schools of Port-Royal the hot-beds of heresy. The Jesuits obtained by their intrigues an order from government to dissolve that virtuous society. They razed the buildings, and ploughed up the very foundation; they exhausted their hatred even on the stones, and profaned even the sanctuary of the dead; the corpses were torn out of their graves, and dogs were suffered to contend for the rags of their shrouds. The memory of that asylum of innocence and learning was still kept alive by those who collected the engravings representing the place by Mademoiselle Hortemels. The police, under Jesuitic influence, at length seized on the plates in the cabinet of the fair artist.--Caustic was the retort courteous which Arnauld gave the Jesuits--"I do not fear your _pen_, but its _knife_."

These were men whom the love of retirement had united to cultivate literature, in the midst of solitude, of peace, and of piety. Alike occupied on sacred, as on profane writers, their writings fixed the French language. The example of these solitaries shows how retirement is favourable to penetrate into the sanctuary of the Muses.

An interesting anecdote is related of Arnauld on the occasion of the dissolution of this society. The dispersion of these great men, and their young scholars, was lamented by every one but their enemies. Many persons of the highest rank participated in their sorrows. The excellent Arnauld, in that moment, was as closely pursued as if he had been a felon.

It was then the Duchess of Longueville concealed Arnauld in an obscure lodging, who assumed the dress of a layman, wearing a sword and full-bottomed wig. Arnauld was attacked by a fever, and in the course of conversation with his physician, he inquired after news. "They talk of a new book of the Port-Royal," replied the doctor, "ascribed to Arnauld or to Sacy; but I do not believe it comes from Sacy; he does not write so well."--"How, sir!" exclaimed the philosopher, forgetting his sword and wig; "believe me, my nephew writes better than I do."--The physician eyed his patient with amazement--he hastened to the duchess, and told her, "The malady of the gentleman you sent me to is not very serious, provided you do not suffer him to see any one, and insist on his holding his tongue." The duchess, alarmed, immediately had Arnauld conveyed to her palace. She concealed him in an apartment, and persisted to attend him herself.--"Ask," she said, "what you want of the servant, but it shall be myself who shall bring it to you."

How honourable is it to the female character, that, in many similar occurrences, their fortitude has proved to be equal to their sensibility! But the Duchess of Longueville contemplated in Arnauld a model of human fortitude which martyrs never excelled. His remarkable reply to Nicolle, when they were hunted from place to place, should never be forgotten: Arnauld wished Nicolle to assist him in a new work, when the latter observed, "We are now old, is it not time to rest?" "Rest!" returned Arnauld, "have we not all Eternity to rest in?" The whole of the Arnauld family were the most extraordinary instance of that hereditary character, which is continued through certain families: here it was a sublime, and, perhaps, singular union of learning with religion. The Arnaulds, Sacy, Pascal, Tillemont, with other illustrious names, to whom literary Europe will owe perpetual obligations, combined the life of the monastery with that of the library.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: The early history of the house is not given quite clearly and correctly in the text. The old foundation of Cistercians, named _Port-Royal des Champs_, was situated in the valley of Chevreuse, near Versailles, and founded in 1204 by Bishop Eudes, of Paris. It was in the reign of Louis XIII. that Madame Arnauld, the mother of the then Abbess, hearing that the sisterhood suffered from the damp situation of their convent and its confined space, purchased a house as an infirmary for its sick members in the Fauxbourg St. Jacques, and called it the _Port-Royal de Paris_, to distinguish it from the older foundation.]

THE PROGRESS OF OLD AGE IN NEW STUDIES.

Of the pleasures derivable from the cultivation of the arts, sciences, and literature, time will not abate the growing passion; for old men still cherish an affection and feel a youthful enthusiasm in those pursuits, when all others have ceased to interest. Dr. Reid, to his last day, retained a most active curiosity in his various studies, and particularly in the revolutions of modern chemistry. In advanced life we may resume our former studies with a new pleasure, and in old age we may enjoy them with the same relish with which more youthful students commence. Adam Smith observed to Dugald Stewart, that "of all the amusements of old age, the most grateful and soothing is a renewal of acquaintance with the favourite studies and favourite authors of youth--a remark, adds Stewart, which, in his own case, seemed to be more particularly exemplified while he was reperusing, with the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancient Greece. I have heard him repeat the observation more than once, while Sophocles and Euripides lay open on his table."

Socrates learnt to play on musical instruments in his old age; Cato, at eighty, thought proper to learn Greek; and Plutarch, almost as late in his life, Latin.

Theophrastus began his admirable work on the Characters of Men at the extreme age of ninety. He only terminated his literary labours by his death.

Ronsard, one of the fathers of French poetry, applied himself late to study. His acute genius, and ardent application, rivalled those poetic models which he admired; and Boccaccio was thirty-five years of age when he commenced his studies in polite literature.

The great Arnauld retained the vigour of his genius, and the command of his pen, to the age of eighty-two, and was still the great Arnauld.

Sir Henry Spelman neglected the sciences in his youth, but cultivated them at fifty years of age. His early years were chiefly passed in farming, which greatly diverted him from his studies; but a remarkable disappointment respecting a contested estate disgusted him with these rustic occupations: resolved to attach himself to regular studies, and literary society, he sold his farms, and became the most learned antiquary and lawyer.

Colbert, the famous French minister, almost at sixty, returned to his Latin and law studies.

Dr. Johnson applied himself to the Dutch language but a few years before his death. The Marquis de Saint Aulaire, at the age of seventy, began to court the Muses, and they crowned him with their freshest flowers. The verses of this French Anacreon are full of fire, delicacy, and sweetness.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were the composition of his latest years: they were begun in his fifty-fourth year, and finished in his sixty-first.

Ludovico Monaldesco, at the extraordinary age of 115, wrote the memoirs of his times. A singular exertion, noticed by Voltaire; who himself is one of the most remarkable instances of the progress of age in new studies.

The most delightful of autobiographies for artists is that of Benvenuto Cellini; a work of great originality, which was not begun till "the clock of his age had struck fifty-eight."

Koornhert began at forty to learn the Latin and Greek languages, of which he became a master; several students, who afterwards distinguished themselves, have commenced as late in life their literary pursuits. Ogilby, the translator of Homer and Virgil, knew little of Latin or Greek till he was past fifty; and Franklin's philosophical pursuits began when he had nearly reached his fiftieth year.

Accorso, a great lawyer, being asked why he began the study of the law so late, answered, beginning it late, he should master it the sooner.

Dryden's complete works form the largest body of poetry from the pen of a single writer in the English language; yet he gave no public testimony of poetic abilities till his twenty-seventh year. In his sixty-eighth year he proposed to translate the whole Iliad: and his most pleasing productions were written in his old age.

Michael Angelo preserved his creative genius even in extreme old age: there is a device said to be invented by him, of an old man represented in a _go-cart_, with an hour-glass upon it; the inscription _Ancora imparo!_--YET I AM LEARNING!

We have a literary curiosity in a favourite treatise with Erasmus and men of letters of that period, _De Ratione Studii_, by Joachim Sterck, otherwise Fortius de Ringelberg. The enthusiasm of the writer often carries him to the verge of ridicule; but something must be conceded to his peculiar situation and feelings; for Baillet tells us that this method of studying had been formed entirely from his own practical knowledge and hard experience: at a late period of life he had commenced his studies, and at length he imagined that he had discovered a more perpendicular mode of ascending the hill of science than by its usual circuitous windings. His work has been compared to the sounding of a trumpet.

Menage, in his Anti-Baillet, has a very curious apology for writing verses in his old age, by showing how many poets amused themselves notwithstanding their grey hairs, and wrote sonnets or epigrams at ninety.

La Casa, in one of his letters, humorously said, _Io credo ch'io farò Sonnetti venti cinque anni, o trenta, pio che io sarò morto_.--"I think I may make sonnets twenty-five, or perhaps thirty years, after I shall be dead!" Petau tells us that he wrote verses to solace the evils of old age--

---- Petavius æger
Cantabat veteris quærens solatia morbi.

Malherbe declares the honours of genius were his, yet young--

Je les posseday jeune, et les possède encore
A la fin de mes jours!

SPANISH POETRY.

Pere Bouhours observes, that the Spanish poets display an extravagant imagination, which is by no means destitute of _esprit_--shall we say _wit_? but which evinces little taste or judgment.

Their verses are much in the style of our Cowley--trivial points, monstrous metaphors, and quaint conceits. It is evident that the Spanish poets imported this taste from the time of Marino in Italy; but the warmth of the Spanish climate appears to have redoubled it, and to have blown the kindled sparks of chimerical fancy to the heat of a Vulcanian forge.

Lopez de Vega, in describing an afflicted shepherdess, in one of his pastorals, who is represented weeping near the sea-side, says, "That the sea joyfully advances to gather her tears; and that, having enclosed them in shells, it converts them into pearls."

"Y el mar como imbidioso
A tierra por las lagrimas salia,
Y alegre de cogerlas
Las guarda en conchas, y convierte en perlas."

Villegas addresses a stream--"Thou who runnest over sands of gold, with feet of silver," more elegant than our Shakspeare's--"Thy silver skin laced with thy golden blood," which possibly he may not have written. Villegas monstrously exclaims, "Touch my breast, if you doubt the power of Lydia's eyes--you will find it turned to ashes." Again--"Thou art so great that thou canst only imitate thyself with thy own greatness;" much like our "None but himself can be his parallel."

Gongora, whom the Spaniards once greatly admired, and distinguished by the epithet of _The Wonderful_, abounds with these conceits.

He imagines that a nightingale, who enchantingly varied her notes, and sang in different manners, had a hundred thousand other nightingales in her breast, which alternately sang through her throat--

"Con diferancia tal, con gracia tanta,
A quel ruysenor llora, que sospecho
Que tiene otros cien mil dentro del pecho,
Que alterno su dolor por su garganta."

Of a young and beautiful lady he says, that she has but a few _years_ of life, but many _ages_ of beauty.

"Muchos siglos de hermosura
En pocos anos de edad."

Many ages of beauty is a false thought, for beauty becomes not more beautiful from its age; it would be only a superannuated beauty. A face of two or three ages old could have but few charms.

In one of his odes he addresses the River of Madrid by the title of the _Duke of Streams_, and the _Viscount of Rivers_--

"Mançanares, Mançanares,
Os que en todo el aguatismo,
Estois _Duque_ de Arroyos,
Y _Visconde_ de los Rios."

He did not venture to call it a _Spanish Grandee_, for, in fact, it is but a shallow and dirty stream; and as Quevedo wittily informs us, "_Mançanares_ is reduced, during the summer season, to the melancholy condition of the wicked rich man, who asks for water in the depths of hell." Though so small, this stream in the time of a flood spreads itself over the neighbouring fields; for this reason Philip the Second built a bridge eleven hundred feet long!--A Spaniard passing it one day, when it was perfectly dry, observing this superb bridge, archly remarked, "That it would be proper that the bridge should be sold to purchase water."--_Es menester, vender la puente, par comprar agua._

The following elegant translation of a Spanish madrigal of the kind here criticised I found in a newspaper, but it is evidently by a master-hand.

On the green margin of the land,
Where Guadalhorce winds his way,
My lady lay:
With golden key Sleep's gentle hand
Had closed her eyes so bright--
Her eyes, two suns of light--
And bade his balmy dews
Her rosy cheeks suffuse.
The River God in slumber saw her laid:
He raised his dripping head,
With weeds o'erspread,
Clad in his wat'ry robes approach'd the maid,
And with cold kiss, like death,
Drank the rich perfume of the maiden's breath.
The maiden felt that icy kiss:
_Her suns unclosed, their flame_
Full and unclouded on th' intruder came.
Amazed th' intruder felt
_His frothy body melt
And heard the radiance on his bosom hiss_;
And, forced in blind confusion to retire,
_Leapt in the water to escape the fire_.

SAINT EVREMOND.

The portrait of St. Evremond is delineated by his own hand.