Chapter XII: Part 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEGENDS, &c. MIRACLES, &c.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MONKS AND FRIARS.—SAINTS AND HERMITS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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