Chapter X: Part 10

When Louis the Eleventh of France beheld his country exhausted by the predatory wars of England, he bought a peace of our Edward the Fourth by an annual sum of fifty thousand crowns, to be paid at London, and likewise granted _pensions_ to the English ministers. Holinshed and all our historians call this a yearly _tribute_; but Comines, the French memoir-writer, with a national spirit, denies that these _gifts_ were either _pensions_ or _tributes_. "Yet," says Bodin, a Frenchman also, but affecting a more philosophical indifference, "it must be either the one or the other; though I confess, that those who receive a pension to obtain peace, commonly boast of it _as if it were a tribute_!"[126] Such are the shades of our feelings in this history of taxation and tribute. But there is another artifice of applying soft names to hard things, by veiling a tyrannical act by a term which presents no disagreeable idea to the imagination. When it was formerly thought desirable, in the relaxation of morals which prevailed in Venice, to institute the office of _censor_, three magistrates were elected bearing this title; but it seemed so harsh and austere in that dissipated city, that these reformers of manners were compelled to change their title; when they were no longer called _censors_, but _I signori sopra il bon vivere della citta_, all agreed on the propriety of the office under the softened term. Father Joseph, the secret agent of Cardinal Richelieu, was the inventor of _lettres de cachet_, disguising that instrument of despotism by the amusing term of _a sealed letter_. Expatriation would have been merciful compared with the result of that _billet-doux_, a sealed letter from his majesty!

Burke reflects with profound truth--"Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, which, by way of eminence, becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened that the great contests for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of _taxing_. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of the state. The question of _money_ was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered."[127]

One party clamorously asserts that taxation is their grievance, while another demonstrates that the annihilation of taxes would be their ruin! The interests of a great nation, among themselves, are often contrary to each other, and each seems alternately to predominate and to decline. "The sting of taxation," observes Mr. Hallam, "is wastefulness; but it is difficult to name a limit beyond which taxes will not be borne without impatience when _faithfully applied_." In plainer words, this only signifies, we presume, that Mr. Hallam's party would tax us without "wastefulness!" Ministerial or opposition, whatever be the administration, it follows that "taxation is no tyranny;" Dr. Johnson then was terribly abused in his day for a _vox et praeterea nihil_!

Still shall the innocent word be hateful, and the people will turn even on their best friend, who in administration inflicts a new impost; as we have shown by the fate of the Roman _Salinator_! Among ourselves, our government, in its constitution, if not always in its practice, long had a consideration towards the feelings of the people, and often contrived to hide the nature of its exactions by a name of blandishment. An enormous grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an officer who was to furnish every sort of provision for the royal house, and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and compelling the countrymen to bring their articles to market, would enter into the history of the arts of grinding the labouring class of society; a remnant of feudal tyranny! The very title of this officer became odious; and by a statute of Edward III. the hateful name of _purveyor_ was ordered to be changed into _acheteur_ or buyer![128] A change of name, it was imagined, would conceal its nature! The term often devised, strangely contrasted with the thing itself. Levies of money were long raised under the pathetic appeal of _benevolences_. When Edward IV. was passing over to France, he obtained, under this gentle demand, money towards "the great journey," and afterwards having "rode about the more part of the lands, and used the people in such fair manner, that they were liberal in their gifts;" old Fabian adds, "the which way of the levying of this money was after-named a benevolence." Edward IV. was courteous in this newly-invented style, and was besides the handsomest tax-gatherer in his kingdom! His royal presence was very dangerous to the purses of his loyal subjects, particularly to those of the females. In his progress, having kissed a widow for having contributed a larger sum than was expected from her estate, she was so overjoyed at the singular honour and delight, that she doubled her _benevolence_, and a second kiss had ruined her! In the succeeding reign of Richard III. the term had already lost the freshness of its innocence. In the speech which the Duke of Buckingham delivered from the hustings in Guildhall, he explained the term to the satisfaction of his auditors, who even then were as cross-humoured as the livery of this day, in their notions of what now we gently call "supplies." "Under the plausible name of _benevolence_, as it was held in the time of Edward IV., your goods were taken from you much against your will, as if by that name was understood that every man should pay, not what he pleased, but what the king would have him;" or, as a marginal note in Buck's Life of Richard III. more pointedly has it, that "the name of _benevolence_ signified that every man should pay, not what he of his own good will list, but what the king of his good will list to take."[129] Richard III., whose business, like that of all usurpers, was to be popular, in a statute even condemns this "benevolence" as "a new imposition," and enacts that "none shall be charged with it in future; many families having been ruined under these pretended gifts." His successor, however, found means to levy "a benevolence;" but when Henry VIII. demanded one, the citizens of London appealed to the act of Richard III. Cardinal Wolsey insisted that the law of a murderous usurper should not be enforced. One of the common council courageously replied, that "King Richard, conjointly with parliament, had enacted many good statutes." Even then the citizen seems to have comprehended the spirit of our constitution--that taxes should not be raised without the consent of parliament!

Charles the First, amidst his urgent wants, at first had hoped, by the pathetic appeal to _benevolences_, that he should have touched the hearts of his unfriendly commoners; but the term of _benevolence_ proved unlucky. The resisters of _taxation_ took full advantage of a significant meaning, which had long been lost in the custom: asserting by this very term that all levies of money were not compulsory, but the voluntary gifts of the people. In that political crisis, when in the fulness of time all the national grievances which had hitherto been kept down started up with one voice, the courteous term strangely contrasted with the rough demand. Lord Digby said "the granting of _subsidies_, under so preposterous a name as of a _benevolence_, was a _malevolence_." And Mr. Grimstone observed, that "they have granted a benevolence, but the nature of the _thing_ agrees not with the _name_." The nature indeed had so entirely changed from the name, that when James I. had tried to warm the hearts of his "benevolent" people, he got "little money, and lost a great deal of love." "Subsidies," that is grants made by parliament, observes Arthur Wilson, a dispassionate historian, "get more of the people's money, but exactions enslave the mind."

When _benevolences_ had become a grievance, to diminish the odium they invented more inviting phrases. The subject was cautiously informed that the sums demanded were only _loans_; or he was honoured by a letter under the _Privy Seal_; a bond which the king engaged to repay at a definite period; but privy seals at length got to be hawked about to persons coming out of church. "Privy Seals," says a manuscript letter, "are flying thick and threefold in sight of all the world, which might surely have been better performed in delivering them to every man privately at home." The _general loan_, which in fact was a forced loan, was one of the most crying grievances under Charles I. Ingenious in the destruction of his own popularity, the king contrived a new mode of "_secret instructions to commissioners_."[130] They were to find out persons who could bear the largest rates. How the commissioners were to acquire this secret and inquisitorial knowledge appears in the bungling contrivance. It is one of their orders that after a number of inquiries have been put to a person, concerning others who had spoken against loan-money, and what arguments they had used, this person was to be charged in his majesty's name, and upon his allegiance, not to disclose to any other the answer he had given. A striking instance of that fatuity of the human mind, when a weak government is trying to do what it knows not how to perform: it was seeking to obtain a secret purpose by the most open and general means: a self-destroying principle!

Our ancestors were children in finance; their simplicity has been too often described as tyranny! but from my soul do I believe, on this obscure subject of taxation, that old Burleigh's advice to Elizabeth includes more than all the squabbling pamphlets of our political economists,--"WIN HEARTS, AND YOU HAVE THEIR HANDS AND PURSES!"

FOOTNOTES:

[122] Cowel's "Interpreter," art. _Acephali_. This by-name we
unexpectedly find in a grave antiquarian law-dictionary! probably
derived from Pliny's description of a people whom some travellers
had reported to have found in this predicament, in their fright and
haste in attempting to land on a hostile shore among savages. To
account for this fabulous people, it has been conjectured they wore
such high coverings, that their heads did not appear above their
shoulders, while their eyes seemed to be placed in their breasts.
How this name came to be introduced into the laws of Henry the First
remains to be told by some profound antiquary; but the allusion was
common in the middle ages. Cowel says, "Those are called _acephali_
who were the _levellers_ of that age, and acknowledged _no head_ or
superior."

[123] _Vocabulario di Santa Caterina e della Lingua Sanese_, 1717.
This pungent lexicon was prohibited at Rome by desire of the court
of Florence. The history of this suppressed work may be found in _Il
Giornale de' Letterati d' Italia_, tomo xxix. 1410. In the last
edition of Haym's "Biblioteca Italiana," 1803, it is said to be
reprinted at _Manilla, nell' Isole Fillippine_!--For the
book-licensers it is a great way to go for it.

[124] Bodin's "Six Books of a Commonwealth," translated by Richard
Knolles, 1606. A work replete with the _practical_ knowledge of
politics, and of which Mr. Dugald Stewart has delivered a high
opinion. Yet this great politician wrote a volume to anathematise
those who doubted the existence of sorcerers and witches, &c., whom
he condemns to the flames! See his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1593.

[125] Wood's "Inquiry on Homer," p. 153.

[126] Bodin's "Commonweal," translated by R. Knolles, p. 148. 1606.

[127] Burke's Works, vol. i. 288.

[128] The modern word _cheater_ is traced by some authors to this
term, which soon became odious to the populace.

[129] Daines Barrington, in "Observations on the Statutes," gives
the marginal _note_ of Buck as the _words_ of the duke; they
certainly served his purpose to amuse, better than the veracious
ones; but we expect from a grave antiquary inviolable authenticity.
The duke is made by Barrington a sort of wit, but the pithy
quaintness is Buck's.

[130] These "Private Instructions to the Commissioners for the
General Loan" may be found in Rushworth, i. 418.

THE BOOK OF DEATH.

Montaigne was fond of reading minute accounts of the deaths of remarkable persons; and, in the simplicity of his heart, old Montaigne wished to be learned enough to form a collection of these deaths, to observe "their words, their actions, and what sort of countenance they put upon it." He seems to have been a little over curious about deaths, in reference, no doubt, to his own, in which he was certainly deceived; for we are told that he did not die as he had promised himself,--expiring in the adoration of the mass; or, as his preceptor Buchanan would have called it, in "the act of rank idolatry."

I have been told of a privately printed volume, under the singular title of "The Book of Death," where an _amateur_ has compiled the pious memorials of many of our eminent men in their last moments: and it may form a companion-piece to the little volume on "Les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant." This work, I fear, must be monotonous; the deaths of the righteous must resemble each other; the learned and the eloquent can only receive in silence that hope which awaits "the covenant of the grave." But this volume will not establish any decisive principle, since the just and the religious have not always encountered death with indifference, nor even in a fit composure of mind.

The functions of the mind are connected with those of the body. On a death-bed a fortnight's disease may reduce the firmest to a most wretched state; while, on the contrary, the soul struggles, as it were in torture, in a robust frame. Nani, the Venetian historian, has curiously described the death of Innocent the Tenth, who was a character unblemished by vices, and who died at an advanced age, with too robust a constitution. _Dopo lunga e terribile agonia, con dolore e con pena, seperandosi l'anima da quel corpo robusto, egli spiro ai sette di Genuaro, nel ottantesimo primo de suoi anno._ "After a long and terrible agony, with great bodily pain and difficulty, his soul separated itself from that robust frame, and expired in his eighty-first year."

Some have composed sermons on death, while they passed many years of anxiety, approaching to madness, in contemplating their own. The certainty of an immediate separation from all our human sympathies may, even on a death-bed suddenly disorder the imagination. The great physician of our times told me of a general, who had often faced the cannon's mouth, dropping down in terror, when informed by him that his disease was rapid and fatal. Some have died of the strong imagination of death. There is a print of a knight brought on the scaffold to suffer; he viewed the headsman; he was blinded, and knelt down to receive the stroke. Having passed through the whole ceremony of a criminal execution, accompanied by all its disgrace, it was ordered that his life should be spared. Instead of the stroke from the sword, they poured cold water over his neck. After this operation the knight remained motionless; they discovered that he had expired in the very imagination of death! Such are among the many causes which may affect the mind in the hour of its last trial. The habitual associations of the natural character are most likely to prevail, though not always. The intrepid Marshal Biron disgraced his exit by womanish tears and raging imbecility; the virtuous Erasmus, with miserable groans, was heard crying out, _Domine! Domine! fac finem! fac finem!_ Bayle having prepared his proof for the printer, pointed to where it lay, when dying. The last words which Lord Chesterfield was heard to speak were, when the valet, opening the curtains of the bed, announced Mr. Dayroles, "Give Dayroles a chair!" "This good breeding," observed the late Dr. Warren, his physician, "only quits him with his life." The last words of Nelson were, "Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to an anchor." The tranquil grandeur which cast a new majesty over Charles the First on the scaffold, appeared when he declared, "I fear not death! Death is not terrible to me!" And the characteristic pleasantry of Sir Thomas More exhilarated his last moments, when, observing the weakness of the scaffold, he said, in mounting it, "I pray you, see me up safe, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself!" Sir Walter Rawleigh passed a similar jest when going to the scaffold.[131]

My ingenious friend Dr. Sherwen has furnished me with the following anecdotes of death:--In one of the bloody battles fought by the Duke d'Enghien, two French noblemen were left wounded among the dead on the field of battle. One complained loudly of his pains; the other, after long silence, thus offered him consolation: "My friend, whoever you are, remember that our God died on the cross, our king on the scaffold; and if you have strength to look at him who now speaks to you, you will see that both his legs are shot away."

At the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, the royal victim looking at the soldiers, who had pointed their fusees, said, "Grenadiers! lower your arms, otherwise you will miss, or only wound me!" To two of them who proposed to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, he said, "A loyal soldier who has been so often exposed to fire and sword can see the approach of death with naked eyes and without fear."

After a similar caution on the part of Sir George Lisle, or Sir Charles Lucas, when murdered in nearly the same manner at Colchester, by the soldiers of Fairfax, the loyal hero, in answer to their assertions and assurances that they would take care not to miss him, nobly replied, "You have often missed me when I have been nearer to you in the field of battle."

When the governor of Cadiz, the Marquis de Solano, was murdered by the enraged and mistaken citizens, to one of his murderers, who had run a pike through his back, he calmly turned round and said, "Coward, to strike there! Come round--if you dare face--and destroy me!"

Abernethy, in his Physiological Lectures, has ingeniously observed that "Shakspeare has represented Mercutio continuing to jest, though conscious that he was mortally wounded; the expiring Hotspur thinking of nothing but honour; and the dying Falstaff still cracking his jests upon Bardolph's nose. If such facts were duly attended to, they would prompt us to make a more liberal allowance for each other's conduct, under certain circumstances, than we are accustomed to do." The truth seems to be, that whenever the functions of the mind are not disturbed by "the nervous functions of the digestive organs," the personal character predominates even in death, and its habitual associations exist to its last moments. Many religious persons may have died without showing in their last moments any of those exterior acts, or employing those fervent expressions, which the collector of "The Book of Death" would only deign to chronicle; their hope is not gathered in their last hour.

Yet many have delighted to taste of death long before they have died, and have placed before their eyes all the furniture of mortality. The horrors of a charnel-house is the scene of their pleasure. The "Midnight Meditations" of Quarles preceded Young's "Night Thoughts" by a century, and both these poets loved preternatural terror.

If I must die, I'll snatch at everything
That may but mind me of my latest breath;
DEATH'S-HEADS, GRAVES, KNELLS, BLACKS,[132] TOMBS, all these shall bring
Into my soul such _useful thoughts of death_,
That this sable king of fears
Shall not catch me unawares.--QUARLES.

But it may be doubtful whether the _thoughts of death are useful_, whenever they put a man out of the possession of his faculties. Young pursued the scheme of Quarles: he raised about him an artificial emotion of death: he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table by lamp-light; as Dr. Donne had his portrait taken, first winding a sheet over his head and closing his eyes; keeping this melancholy picture by his bed-side as long as he lived, to remind him of his mortality[133]. Young, even in his garden, had his conceits of death: at the end of an avenue was viewed a seat of an admirable chiaro-oscuro, which, when approached, presented only a painted surface, with an inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world. To be looking at "the mirror which flatters not;" to discover ourselves only as a skeleton with the horrid life of corruption about us, has been among those penitential inventions, which have often ended in shaking the innocent by the pangs which are only natural to the damned.[134] Without adverting to those numerous testimonies, the diaries of fanatics, I shall offer a picture of an accomplished and innocent lady, in a curious and unaffected transcript she has left of a mind of great sensibility, where the preternatural terror of death might perhaps have hastened the premature one she suffered.

From the "Reliquiae Gethinianae,"[135] I quote some of Lady Gethin's ideas on "Death."--"The very thoughts of death disturb one's reason; and though a man may have many excellent qualities, yet he may have the weakness of not commanding his sentiments. Nothing is worse for one's health than to be in fear of death. There are some so wise as neither to hate nor fear it; but for my part I have an aversion for it; and with reason; for it is a rash inconsiderate thing, that always comes before it is looked for; always comes unseasonably, parts friends, ruins beauty, laughs at youth, and draws a dark veil over all the pleasures of life.--This dreadful evil is but the evil of a moment, and what we cannot by any means avoid; and it is that which makes it so terrible to me; for were it uncertain, hope might diminish some part of the fear; but when I think I must die, and that I may die every moment, and that too a thousand several ways, I am in such a fright as you cannot imagine. I see dangers where, perhaps, there never were any. I am persuaded 'tis happy to be somewhat dull of apprehension in this case; and yet the best way to cure the pensiveness of the thoughts of death is to think of it as little as possible." She proceeds by enumerating the terrors of the fearful, who "cannot enjoy themselves in the pleasantest places, and although they are neither on sea, river, or creek, but in good health in their chamber, yet are they so well instructed with the _fear of dying_, that they do not measure it only by the _present_ dangers that wait on us.--Then is it not best to submit to God? But some people cannot do it as they would; and though they are not destitute of reason, but perceive they are to blame, yet at the same time that their reason condemns them their imagination makes their hearts feel what it pleases."

Such is the picture of an ingenious and a religious mind, drawn by an amiable woman, who, it is evident, lived always in the fear of death. The Gothic skeleton was ever haunting her imagination. In Dr. Johnson the same horror was suggested by the thoughts of death. When Boswell once in conversation persecuted Johnson on this subject, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death; he answered in a passion, "No, sir! let it alone! It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives! The art of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time!" But when Boswell persisted in the conversation, Johnson was thrown into such a state of agitation, that he thundered out "Give us no more of this!" and, further, sternly told the trembling and too curious philosopher, "Don't let us meet to-morrow!"

It may be a question whether those who by their preparatory conduct have appeared to show the greatest indifference for death, have not rather betrayed the most curious art to disguise its terrors. Some have invented a mode of escaping from life in the midst of convivial enjoyment. A mortuary preparation of this kind has been recorded of an amiable man, Moncriff, the author of "Histoire des Chats" and "L'Art de Plaire," by his literary friend La Place, who was an actor in, as well as the historian of, the singular narrative. One morning La Place received a note from Moncriff, requesting that "he would immediately select for him a dozen volumes most likely to amuse, and of a nature to withdraw the reader from being occupied by melancholy thoughts." La Place was startled at the unusual request, and flew to his old friend, whom he found deeply engaged in being measured for a new peruke, and a taffety robe-de-chambre, earnestly enjoining the utmost expedition. "Shut the door!" said Moncriff, observing the surprise of his friend. "And now that we are alone, I confide my secret: on rising this morning, my valet in dressing me showed me on this leg this dark spot--from that moment I knew I was 'condemned to death;' but I had presence of mind enough not to betray myself." "Can a head so well organised as yours imagine that such a trifle is a sentence of death?"--"Don't speak so loud, my friend! or rather deign to listen a moment. At my age it is fatal! The system from which I have derived the felicity of a long life has been, that whenever any evil, moral or physical, happens to us, if there is a remedy, all must be sacrificed to deliver us from it--but in a contrary case, I do not choose to wrestle with destiny and to begin complaints, endless as useless! All that I request of you, my friend, is to assist me to pass away the few days which remain for me, free from all cares, of which otherwise they might be too susceptible. But do not think," he added with warmth, "that I mean to elude the religious duties of a citizen, which so many of late affect to contemn. The good and virtuous curate of my parish is coming here under the pretext of an annual contribution, and I have even ordered my physician, on whose confidence I can rely. Here is a list of ten or twelve persons, friends beloved! who are mostly known to you. I shall write to them this evening, to tell them of my condemnation; but if they wish me to live, they will do me the favour to assemble here at five in the evening, where they may be certain of finding all those objects of amusement, which I shall study to discover suitable to their tastes. And you, my old friend, with my doctor, are two on whom I most depend."

La Place was strongly affected by this appeal--neither Socrates, nor Cato, nor Seneca looked more serenely on the approach of death.

"Familiarise yourself early with death!" said the good old man with a smile--"It is only dreadful for those who dread it!"

During ten days after this singular conversation, the whole of Moncriff's remaining life, his apartment was open to his friends, of whom several were ladies; all kinds of games were played till nine o'clock; and that the sorrows of the host might not disturb his guests, he played the _chouette_ at his favourite game of _picquet_; a supper, seasoned by the wit of the master, concluded at eleven. On the tenth night, in taking leave of his friend, Moncriff whispered to him, "Adieu, my friend! to-morrow morning I shall return your books!" He died, as he foresaw, the following day.

I have sometimes thought that we might form a history of this _fear of death_, by tracing the first appearances of the SKELETON which haunts our funereal imagination. In the modern history of mankind we might discover some very strong contrasts in the notion of death entertained by men at various epochs. The following article will supply a sketch of this kind.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] To these may be added Queen Anne Boleyn. Kingston, the
Lieutenant of the Tower, in a letter to Cromwell, records that she
remarked of her own execution, "'I heard say the executioner was
very good, and I have a little neck;' and she put her hands about
it, laughing heartily. Truly, this lady has much joy and pleasure in
death."

[132] _Blacks_ was the term for mourning in James the First and
Charles the First's time.

[133] It was from this picture his stone effigy was constructed for
his tomb in old St. Paul's. This mutilated figure, which withstood
the great fire of London, is still preserved in the crypt of the
present cathedral.

[134] A still more curious _fashion_ in this taste for mortuary
memorials originated at the court of Henry II. of France; whose
mistress, Diana of Poitiers, being a widow; mourning colours of
black and white became the fashion at court. Watches in the form of
skulls were worn; jewels and pendants in the shape of coffins; and
rings decorated with skulls and skeletons.

[135] My discovery of the nature of this rare volume, of what is
original and what collected, will be found in volume ii. of this
work.

HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH.

_Euthanasia! Euthanasia_! an easy death! was the exclamation of Augustus; it was what Antoninus Pius enjoyed; and it is that for which every wise man will pray, said Lord Orrery, when perhaps he was contemplating the close of Swift's life.

The ancients contemplated DEATH without terror, and met it with indifference. It was the only divinity to which they never sacrificed, convinced that no human being could turn aside its stroke. They raised altars to Fever, to Misfortune, to all the evils of life; for these might change! But though they did not court the presence of death in any shape, they acknowledged its tranquillity; and in the beautiful fables of their allegorical religion, Death was the daughter of Night, and the sister of Sleep; and ever the friend of the unhappy! To the eternal sleep of death they dedicated their sepulchral monuments--_AEternali somno!_[136] If the full light of revelation had not yet broken on them, it can hardly be denied that they had some glimpses and a dawn of the life to come, from the many allegorical inventions which describe the transmigration of the soul. A butterfly on the extremity of an extinguished lamp, held up by the messenger of the gods intently gazing above, implied a dedication of that soul; Love, with a melancholy air, his legs crossed, leaning on an inverted torch, the flame thus naturally extinguishing itself, elegantly denoted the cessation of human life; a rose sculptured on a sarcophagus, or the emblems of epicurean life traced on it, in a skull wreathed by a chaplet of flowers, such as they wore at their convivial meetings, a flask of wine, a patera, and the small bones used as dice: all these symbols were indirect allusions to death, veiling its painful recollections. They did not pollute their imagination with the contents of a charnel-house. The sarcophagi of the ancients rather recall to us the remembrance of the activity of life; for they are sculptured with battles or games, in basso relievo; a sort of tender homage paid to the dead, observes Mad. de Stael, with her peculiar refinement of thinking.

It would seem that the Romans had even an aversion to mention death in express terms, for they disguised its very name by some periphrasis, such as _discessit e vita_, "he has departed from life;" and they did not say that their friend had _died_, but that he had _lived_; _vixit_! In the old Latin chronicles, and even in the _Foedera_ and other documents of the middle ages, we find the same delicacy about using the fatal word _Death_, especially when applied to kings and great people. "_Transire a Saeculo--Vitam suam mutare--Si quid de eo humanitus contigerit, &c._" I am indebted to Mr. Merivale for this remark. Even among a people less refined, the obtrusive idea of death has been studiously avoided: we are told that when the Emperor of Morocco inquires after any one who has recently died, it is against etiquette to mention the word "death;" the answer is "his destiny is closed!" But this tenderness is only reserved for "the elect" of the Mussulmen. A Jew's death is at once plainly expressed: "He is dead, sir! asking your pardon for mentioning such a contemptible wretch!" _i.e._ a Jew! A Christian's is described by "The infidel is dead!" or, "The cuckold is dead."

The ancient artists have so rarely attempted to personify Death, that we have not discovered a single revolting image of this nature in all the works of antiquity.[137]--To conceal its deformity to the eye, as well as to elude its suggestion to the mind, seems to have been an universal feeling, and it accorded with a fundamental principle of ancient art; that of never permitting violent passion to produce in its representation distortion of form. This may be observed in the Laocoon, where the mouth only opens sufficiently to indicate the suppressed agony of superior humanity, without expressing the loud cry of vulgar suffering. Pausanias considered as a personification of death a female figure, whose teeth and nails, long and crooked, were engraven on a coffin of cedar, which enclosed the body of Cypselus; this female was unquestionably only one of the _Parcae_, or the Fates, "watchful to cut the thread of life." Hesiod describes Atropos indeed as having sharp teeth and long nails, waiting to tear and devour the dead; but this image was of a barbarous era. Catullus ventured to personify the Sister Destinies as three Crones; "but in general," Winkelmann observes, "they are portrayed as beautiful virgins, with winged heads, one of whom is always in the attitude of writing on a scroll." Death was a nonentity to the ancient artist. Could he exhibit what represents nothing? Could he animate into action what lies in a state of eternal tranquillity? Elegant images of repose and tender sorrow were all he could invent to indicate the state of death. Even the terms which different nations have bestowed on a burial-place are not associated with emotions of horror. The Greeks called a burying-ground by the soothing term of _Coemeterion_, or "the sleeping-place;" the Jews, who had no horrors of the grave, by _Beth-haim_, or, "the house of the living;" the Germans, with religious simplicity, "God's-field." The Scriptures had only noticed that celestial being "the Angel of Death,"--graceful, solemn, and sacred!

Whence, then, originated that stalking skeleton, suggesting so many false and sepulchral ideas, and which for us has so long served as the image of death?

When the Christian religion spread over Europe, the world changed! the certainty of a future state of existence, by the artifices of wicked worldly men, terrified instead of consoling human nature; and in the resurrection the ignorant multitude seemed rather to have dreaded retribution, than to have hoped for remuneration. The Founder of Christianity everywhere breathes the blessedness of social feelings. It is "Our Father!" whom he addresses. The horrors with which Christianity was afterwards disguised arose in the corruptions of Christianity among those insane ascetics who, misinterpreting "the Word of Life," trampled on nature; and imagined that to secure an existence in the other world it was necessary not to exist in the one in which God had placed them. The dominion of mankind fell into the usurping hands of those imperious monks whose artifices trafficed with the terrors of ignorant and hypochondriac "Kaisers and kings." The scene was darkened by penances and by pilgrimages, by midnight vigils, by miraculous shrines, and bloody flagellations; spectres started up amidst their _tenebres_; millions of masses increased their supernatural influence. Amidst this general gloom of Europe, their troubled imaginations were frequently predicting the end of the world. It was at this period that they first beheld the grave yawn, and Death, in the Gothic form of a gaunt anatomy, parading through the universe! The people were frightened as they viewed, everywhere hung before their eyes, in the twilight of their cathedrals, and their "pale cloisters," the most revolting emblems of death. They startled the traveller on the bridge; they stared on the sinner in the carvings of his table and chair; the spectre moved in the hangings of the apartment; it stood in the niche, and was the picture of their sitting-room; it was worn in their rings, while the illuminator shaded the bony phantom in the margins of their "Horae," their primers, and their breviaries. Their barbarous taste perceived no absurdity in giving action to a heap of dry bones, which could only keep together in a state of immovability and repose; nor that it was burlesquing the awful idea of the resurrection, by exhibiting the incorruptible spirit under the unnatural and ludicrous figure of mortality drawn out of the corruption of the grave.

An anecdote of these monkish times has been preserved by old Gerard Leigh; and as old stories are best set off by old words, Gerard speaketh! "The great Maximilian the emperor came to a monastery in High Almaine (Germany), the monks whereof had caused to be curiously painted the charnel of a man, which they termed--Death! When that well-learned emperor had beholden it awhile, he called unto him his painter, commanding to blot the skeleton out, and to paint therein the image of--a fool. Wherewith the abbot, humbly beseeching him to the contrary, said 'It was a good remembrance!'--'Nay,' quoth the emperor, 'as vermin that annoyeth man's body cometh unlooked for, so doth death, which here is but a fained image, and life is a certain thing, if we know to deserve it.'"[138] The original mind of Maximilian the Great is characterized by this curious story of converting our emblem of death into a parti-coloured fool; and such satirical allusions to the folly of those who persisted in their notion of the skeleton were not unusual with the artists of those times; we find the figure of a fool sitting with some drollery between the legs of one of these skeletons.[139]

This story is associated with an important fact. After they had successfully terrified the people with their charnel-house figure, a reaction in the public feelings occurred, for the skeleton was now employed as a medium to convey the most facetious, satirical, and burlesque notions of human life. Death, which had so long harassed their imaginations, suddenly changed into a theme fertile in coarse humour. The Italians were too long accustomed to the study of the beautiful to allow their pencil to sport with deformity; but the Gothic taste of the German artists, who could only copy their own homely nature, delighted to give human passions to the hideous physiognomy of a noseless skull; to put an eye of mockery or malignity into its hollow socket, and to stretch out the gaunt anatomy into the postures of a Hogarth; and that the ludicrous might be carried to its extreme, this imaginary being, taken from the bone-house, was viewed in the action of _dancing_! This blending of the grotesque with the most disgusting image of mortality, is the more singular part of this history of the skeleton, and indeed of human nature itself!

"The Dance of Death," erroneously considered as Holbein's, with other similar Dances, however differently treated, have one common subject which was painted in the arcades of burying-grounds, or on town-halls, and in market-places. The subject is usually "The Skeleton" in the act of leading all ranks and conditions to the grave, personated after nature, and in the strict costume of the times. This invention opened a new field for genius; and when we can for a moment forget their luckless choice of their bony and bloodless hero, who to amuse us by a variety of action becomes a sort of horrid Harlequin in these pantomimical scenes, we may be delighted by the numerous human characters, which are so vividly presented to us. The origin of this extraordinary invention is supposed to be a favourite pageant, or religious mummery, invented by the clergy, who in these ages of barbarous Christianity always found it necessary to amuse, as well as to frighten the populace; a circumstance well known to have occurred in so many other grotesque and licentious festivals they allowed the people. The practice of dancing in churches and church-yards was interdicted by several councils; but it was found convenient in those rude times. It seems probable that the clergy contrived the present dance, as more decorous and not without moral and religious emotions. This pageant was performed in churches, in which the chief characters in society were supported in a sort of masquerade, mixing together in a general dance, in the course of which every one in his turn vanished from the scene, to show how one after the other died off. The subject was at once poetical and ethical; and the poets and painters of Germany adopting the skeleton, sent forth this chimerical Ulysses of another world to roam among the men and manners of their own. A popular poem was composed, said to be by one Macaber, which name seems to be a corruption of St. Macaire; the old Gaulish version, reformed, is still printed at Troyes, in France, with the ancient blocks of woodcuts, under the title of "La Grande Danse Macabre des Hommes et des Femmes." Merian's "Todten Tanz," or the "Dance of the Dead," is a curious set of prints of a Dance of Death from an ancient painting, I think not entirely defaced, in a cemetery at Basle, in Switzerland. It was ordered to be painted by a council held there during many years, to commemorate the mortality occasioned by a plague in 1439. The prevailing character of all these works is unquestionably grotesque and ludicrous; not, however, that genius, however barbarous, could refrain in this large subject of human life from inventing scenes often imagined with great delicacy of conception, and even great pathos. Such is the new-married couple, whom Death is leading, beating a drum; and in the rapture of the hour, the bride seems, with a melancholy look, not insensible of his presence; or Death is seen issuing from the cottage of the poor widow with her youngest child, who waves his hand sorrowfully, while the mother and the sister vainly answer; or the old man, to whom Death is playing on a psaltery, seems anxious that his withered fingers should once more touch the strings, while he is carried off in calm tranquillity. The greater part of these subjects of death are, however, ludicrous; and it may be a question, whether the spectators of these Dances of Death did not find their mirth more excited than their religious emotions. Ignorant and terrified as the people were at the view of the skeleton, even the grossest simplicity could not fail to laugh at some of those domestic scenes and familiar persons drawn from among themselves. The skeleton, skeleton as it is, in the creation of genius, gesticulates and mimics, while even its hideous skull is made to express every diversified character, and the result is hard to describe; for we are at once amused and disgusted with so much genius founded on so much barbarism.[140]

When the artist succeeded in conveying to the eye the most ludicrous notions of death, the poets also discovered in it a fertile source of the burlesque. The curious collector is acquainted with many volumes where the most extraordinary topics have been combined with this subject. They made the body and the soul debate together, and ridicule the complaints of a damned soul! The greater part of the poets of the time were always composing on the subject of Death in their humorous pieces.[141] Such historical records of the public mind, historians, intent on political events, have rarely noticed.

Of a work of this nature, a popular favourite was long the one entitled "_Le faut mourir, et les Excuses Inutiles qu'on apporte a cette Necessite; Le tout en vers burlesques, 1658_." Jacques Jacques, a canon of Ambrun, was the writer, who humorously says of himself that he gives his thoughts just as they lie on his heart, without dissimulation--"For I have nothing double about me except my name! I tell thee some of the most important truths in laughing; it is for thee _d'y penser tout a bon_." This little volume was procured for me with some difficulty in France; and it is considered as one of the happiest of this class of death-poems, of which I know not of any in our literature.

Our canon of Ambrun, in facetious rhymes, and with the _naivete_ of expression which belongs to his age, and an idiomatic turn fatal to a translator, excels in pleasantry; his haughty hero condescends to hold very amusing dialogues with all classes of society, and delights to confound their "excuses inutiles." The most miserable of men, the galley-slave, the mendicant, alike would escape when he appears to them. "Were I not absolute over them," Death exclaims, "they would confound me with their long speeches; but I have business, and must gallop on!" His geographical rhymes are droll.

Ce que j'ai fait dans l'Afrique
Je le fais bien dans l'Amerique;
On l'appelle monde nouveau
Mais ce sont des brides a veau;
Nulle terre a moy n'est nouvelle
Je vay partout sans qu'on m'appelle;
Mon bras de tout temps commanda
Dans le pays du Canada;
J'ai tenu de tout temps en bride
La Virginie et la Floride,
Et j'ai bien donne sur le bec
Aux Francais du fort de Kebec.
Lorsque je veux je fais la nique
Aux Incas, aux rois de Mexique;
Et montre aux Nouveaux Grenadins
Qu'ils sont des foux et des badins.
Chacun sait bien comme je matte
Ceux du Bresil et de la Plate,
Ainsi que les Taupinembous--
En un mot, je fais voir a tout
Que ce que nait dans la nature,
Doit prendre de moy tablature![142]

The perpetual employments of Death display copious invention with a facility of humour.

Egalement je vay rangeant,
Le conseiller et le serjent,
Le gentilhomme et le berger,
Le bourgeois et le boulanger,
Et la maistresse et la servante
Et la niece comme la tante;
Monsieur l'abbe, monsieur son moine,
Le petit clerc et le chanoine;
Sans choix je mets dans mon butin
Maistre Claude, maistre Martin,
Dame Luce, dame Perrete, &c.
J'en prends un dans le temps qu'il pleure
A quelque autre, au contraire a l'heure
Qui demesurement il rit;
Je donne le coup qui le frit.
J'en prends un, pendant qu'il se leve;
En se couchant l'autre j'enleve.
Je prends le malade et le sain
L'un aujourd'hui, l'autre le demain.
J'en surprends un dedans son lit,
L'autre a l'estude quand il lit.
J'en surprends un le ventre plein
Je mene l'autre par la faim.
J'attrape l'un pendant qu'il prie,
Et l'autre pendant qu'il renie;
J'en saisis un au cabaret
Entre le blanc et le clairet,
L'autre qui dans son oratoire
A son Dieu rend honneur et gloire:
J'en surprends un lorsqu'il se psame
Le jour qu'il epouse sa femme,
L'autre le jour que plein de deuil
La sieune il voit dans le cercueil;
Un a pied et l'autre a cheval,
Dans le jeu l'un, et l'autre au bal;
Un qui mange et l'autre qui boit,
Un qui paye et l'autre qui doit,
L'un en ete lorsqu'il moissonne,
L'autre eu vendanges dans l'automne,
L'un criant almanachs nouveaux--
Un qui demande son aumosne
L'autre dans le temps qu'il la donne,
Je prends le bon maistre Clement,
Au temps qu'il prend un lavement,
Et prends la dame Catherine
Le jour qu'elle prend medecine.

This veil of gaiety in the old canon of Ambrun covers deeper and more philosophical thoughts than the singular mode of treating so solemn a theme. He has introduced many scenes of human life which still interest, and he addresses the "teste a triple couronne," as well as the "forcat de galere," who exclaims, "Laissez-moi vivre dans mes fers," "le gueux," the "bourgeois," the "chanoine," the "pauvre soldat," the "medecin;" in a word, all ranks in life are exhibited, as in all the "Dances of Death." But our object in noticing these burlesque paintings and poems is to show that after the monkish Goths had opened one general scene of melancholy and tribulation over Europe, and given birth to that dismal _skeleton of death_, which still terrifies the imagination of many, a reaction of feeling was experienced by the populace, who at length came to laugh at the gloomy spectre which had so long terrified them!

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Montfaucon, "L'Antiquite Expliquee," i. 362.

[137] A representation of Death by a skeleton appears among the
Egyptians: a custom more singular than barbarous prevailed, of
enclosing a skeleton of beautiful workmanship in a small coffin,
which the bearer carried round at their entertainments; observing,
"After death you will resemble this figure: drink, then! and be
happy." A symbol of Death in a convivial party was not designed to
excite terrific or gloomy ideas, but a recollection of the brevity
of human life.

[138] "The Accidence of Armorie," p. 199.

[139] A woodcut preserved in Mr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron,
i. 35.

[140] My greatly-lamented friend, the late Mr. Douce, has poured
forth the most curious knowledge on this singular subject, of "The
Dance of Death." This learned investigator has reduced _Macaber_ to
a nonentity, but not "The Macaber Dance," which has been frequently
painted. Mr. Douce's edition is accompanied by a set of woodcuts,
which have not unsuccessfully copied the exquisite originals of the
Lyons wood-cutter.

[141] Goujet, "Bib. Francoise," vol. x. 185.

[142] _Tablature d'un luth_, Cotgrave says, is the belly of a lute,
meaning "all in nature must dance to my music!"

THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN.

Peter Heylin was one of the popular writers of his times, like Fuller and Howell, who, devoting their amusing pens to subjects which deeply interested their own busy age, will not be slighted by the curious.[143] We have nearly outlived their divinity, but not their politics. Metaphysical absurdities are luxuriant weeds which must be cut down by the scythe of Time; but the great passions branching from the tree of life are still "growing with our growth."

There are two biographies of our Heylin, which led to a literary quarrel of an extraordinary nature; and, in the progress of its secret history, all the feelings of rival authorship were called out.

Heylin died in 1662. Dr. Barnard, his son-in-law, and a scholar, communicated a sketch of the author's life to be prefixed to a posthumous folio, of which Heylin's son was the editor. This Life was given by the son, but anonymously, which may not have gratified the author, the son-in-law.[144]

Twenty years had elapsed when, in 1682, appeared "The Life of Dr. Peter Heylin, by George Vernon." The writer, alluding to the prior Life prefixed to the posthumous folio, asserts that, in borrowing something from Barnard, Barnard had also "Excerpted passages out of _my papers_, the very words as well as matter, when he had them in his custody, as any reader may discern who will be at the pains of comparing the Life now published with what is extant before the _Keimalea Ecclesiastica_;" the quaint, pedantic title, after the fashion of the day, of the posthumous folio.

This strong accusation seemed countenanced by a dedication to the son and the nephew of Heylin. Roused now into action, the indignant Barnard soon produced a more complete Life, to which he prefixed "A necessary Vindication." This is an unsparing castigation of Vernon, the literary pet whom the Heylins had fondled in preference to their learned relative.[145] The long-smothered family grudge, the suppressed mortifications of literary pride, after the subterraneous grumblings of twenty years, now burst out, and the volcanic particles flew about in caustic pleasantries and sharp invectives; all the lava of an author's vengeance, mortified by the choice of an inferior rival.

It appears that Vernon had been selected by the son of Heylin, in preference to his brother-in-law, Dr. Barnard, from some family disagreement. Barnard tells us, in describing Vernon, that "No man, except himself, who was totally ignorant of the doctor, and all the circumstances of his life, would have engaged in such a work, which was never primarily laid out for him, but by reason of some unhappy differences, as usually fall out in families; and he, who loves to put his oar in troubled waters, instead of closing them up, hath made them wider."