Chapter XII: Applications (6)

From the original Armenian stock can be readily distinguished a mass of Old and Middle Persian loan-words. These are so numerous that for a time Armenian was classed as an Iranian tongue. For more than a thousand years, say until A.D. 640, Armenia was an appanage of the realm of the Persians and Parthians. Until A.D. 428 the Armenian throne was occupied by a younger branch of the Arsacid dynasty that ruled in Persia until the advent of the Sassanids (c. A.D. 226), and the internal polity and court administration of Armenia were modelled on the Persian or Parthian. Accordingly over 200 proper and personal names in Armenia were Old Persian, as well as 700 names of things. If we count in the derivative forms of these words we get at least 2000 Old Persian words. Often the same Persian word was borrowed twice over in an earlier and later form at an interval of centuries, just as in English we inherit a word direct or have taken it from Latin, and have also assimilated from French a later form of the same. The Persian influence in Armenian was already strong as early as 400 B.C., when Xenophon used a Persian interpreter to converse. In some of the Armenian villages they answered him in Persian. The Persian loan-words already present in Armenian as early as A.D. 400 mirror the earlier political and social life of Armenia. Thus many of their kings and nobles had Persian names; Persian also were most words used in connexion with horses and the chase, with war and army, with dress, trade and coinage, calendar, weights and measures, with court and political institutions, with music, medicine, school, education, literature and the arts. Many everyday words were of the same origin, e.g. the words for village, desert, building and build, need, rich or liberal, arm (of body), rod or goad, face, opposite, wicked, unfriendly, discontented, difficult, daughter, eulogy, a youth, wary, enjoy, unhappy, volition, voluntary, unwilling, blind, cautious, blood-kin, coquet with, slumber, humble, mad, grace or favour, memory or attention, grandfather, old woman, prepared, duty, necessary, end, endless, superior, confident, mistake, warmth, heat, glory. The language of their old religion was mainly Persian, but in the 4th century they derived numerous ecclesiological words from the Syrians, from whom by way of Edessa and Nisibis Christianity penetrated eastern Armenia. The language of the garden and the names of plants were also Persian. They had their own numerals, but the words for one thousand and for ten thousand are Persian.

Yet more indicative of the extent of the Persian influence is the adoption of the adjectival ending -_akan_ and -_zan_, added to purely Armenian words; also of the preposition _ham_, answering to _con_ in "conjoin," "conspire," added to purely Armenian words, as in _hambarnam_, I take away, and _hamboir_, a kiss, a word which, strange to say, the Iberians in turn borrowed from the Armenians. From Persia also the Armenians took their names for surrounding races, e.g. _Tatshik_ or _Tajik_, first for Arab and then for Turk, _Ariq_ for Persians, _Kapkoh_ for Caucasus, _Hrazdan_, _Vaspuragan_, &c. The Armenians call themselves _Hay_, plural _Hayq_; their country _Hayasdan_. The Iberians they called _Virq_ or _Wirq_ (where q marks the plural), the Medes _Marq_, the Cappadocians _Gamirq_ (Cimmerians), the Greeks Yunes or Ionians; Ararat they call _Masis_, the Euphrates the _Aradsan_, the Tigris _Teglath_, Erzerum is _Karin_, Edessa _Urhha_, Nisibis _Mdsbin_, Ctesiphon _Tizbon_, &c.

When the Persian and other loan-words are removed, a stock remains of native words and forms governed by other phonetic laws than those which govern the Aryan, i.e. Indian and Iranic, branch of the Indo-European tongues. Armenian appears to be a half-way dialect between the Aryan branch and Slavo-lettic. Much, however, in Armenian philology remains unexplained. For example the plural of nouns, pronouns and the first and second persons plural of verbs are all formed by adding a q or k, which has no parallel in any Indo-Germanic tongue. The genitive plural again is formed by adding a _tz_ or c, and the same consonant characterizes the composite aorist and the conjunctive. In all three cases it is unexplained. In the verbs the termination m for the first singular at once explains itself, and the n of the third plural is the Indo-Germanic _nti_. But not so the second person singular ending in s, e.g. _berem_, I bear, _beres_, thou bearest. This has a superficial likeness to the I.-G. _esi_ in _bheresi_, "thou bearest." Yet we should expect the s between vowels to vanish, and give us in Armenian _bere_. Perhaps, therefore, an old variant of _esi_, similar to the [Greek: essi], lies behind the Armenian _es_, thou art, and the _es_ in _beres_, thou bearest. In any case it is clear that many of the oldest forms which Armenian shared with other Indo-Germanic dialects were lost and replaced by forms of which the origin is obscure. Perhaps a closer study of Mingrelian and Georgian will explain some of these peculiarities, for these and their cognate tongues must have had a wider range in the 7th and 8th centuries B.C. than they had later when clear history begins. The attempts made by S. Bugge to assimilate Old Armenian to Etruscan, and by P. Jensen to explain from it the Hittite inscriptions, appear to be fanciful. There is a large Semitic influence traceable in Armenian due to their early contact with the Syriac-speaking peoples to the south and east of them, and later to the Arab conquest. Much remains to be done in the way of collecting Armenian dialects, for which task there are written materials as far back as the 12th century over and above the work to be done by an intelligent traveller armed with a phonograph. Two main dialects of Armenian are distinguishable to-day, that of Ararat and Tiflis, and that of Stambul and the coast cities of Asia Minor. The latter is much overlaid with Tatar or Turkish words, and the Tatar order of words distinguishes the modern Armenian sentence from the ancient.

It remains to say that classical Armenian resembles rather the modern idiom of Van than of western Armenia. It was a plastic and noble language, capable of rendering faithfully, yet not servilely, the Greek Bible and Greek fathers. Often the Armenian translators, and especially after the 5th century, rendered word for word, preserving the order of the Greek. This literalness, though unpleasing from a literary standpoint, gives to many of their ancient versions the value almost of a Greek codex of the age in which the version was made. The same literalness also characterizes their translations from Syriac.

Literature.

The Armenians had a temple literature of their own, which was destroyed in the 4th and 5th centuries by the Christian clergy, so thoroughly that barely twenty lines of it survive in the history of Moses of Khoren (Chorene). Their Christian literature begins about 400 with the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop. This was probably an older alphabet to which Mesrop merely added vowels; but, in order to pacify the Greek ecclesiastics and the emperor Theodosius the Less, the Armenians concocted a story that it had been divinely revealed. Once their alphabet perfected, the catholicus Sahak formed a school of translators who were sent to Edessa, Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea in Cappadocia, and elsewhere, to procure codices both in Syriac and Greek and translate them. From Syriac were made the first version of the New Testament, the version of Eusebius' History and his Life of Constantine (unless this be from the original Greek), the homilies of Aphraates, the Acts of Gurias and Samuna, the works of Ephrem Syrus (partly published in four volumes by the Mechitharists of Venice). They include the commentaries on the _Diatessaron_ and the Paulines, Laboubna and History of Addai, the Syriac canons of the Apostles.

From the original Greek were rendered in the 5th century the following authors and works. An asterisk is prefixed to those which have been printed:--*Eusebius' _Chronicon_; *Philo's lost commentaries on Genesis and Exodus, and his lost treatises on Providence and Animals, as well as a great number of his works still preserved in Greek; *the entire Bible (the New Testament is a recension after Antiochene Greek texts of an older version made from the oldest Syriac text); *the Alexander romance of the pseudo-Callisthenes; *_Epistles_ and _Acts_ of Ignatius of Antioch; *many homilies of Gregory Thaumaturgus; *Athanasius (a large number of works, many of them wrongly attributed); Irenaeus, _Adversus Haereses_ and _Ad Marcianum_ (recently found); *Hippolytus' commentaries on the Song of Songs and Daniel, and many fragments; *Timotheus' life of Athanasius; Theophilus of Alexandria, various homilies; *Eusebius of Gabala or Severianus, fifteen Homilies; *Cyril of Jerusalem, _Catecheses_ and Letter to Constantine; *_Wisdom of Ahikar_; *the _Apology_ of Aristides; Gregory of Nazianzus, thirty-four Homilies; *Nonnus' work on Gregory (perhaps a version of 6th century); Basil of Caesarea, *_Hexaemeron_, fifteen Homilies on faith, epistle to Terentius, ascetic writings and canons, on the Holy Spirit, to Cledonius, &c. Helladius of Caesarea's life of Basil; Gregory of Nyssa's treatise on the Beatitudes, and many other homilies, Commentaries on Song of Songs, *On Human Nature (Nemesius), panegyrics on sundry Martyrs, and other works (but some of these versions belong to the beginning of the 8th century); Epiphanius of Salamis, Commentary on the Gospels, *_On weights and measures_, *_Physiologus_, canons and many homilies; Evagrius of Pontus, Homilies and Ascetic works, Letters to Melania, &c.; John Chrysostom, *Homilies and Prayers, in very beautiful language; *Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, many homilies; *Nilus the Ascete, _On the Eight Spirits of Evil_; *Josephus, _On the Jewish War_; Dionysius of Alexandria, *_Against Paul of Samosata_ and other fragments; Acacius, bishop of Melitene, *_Letters_ to Sahak; Julius of Rome (fragments); Zenobius, Homilies (? from Syriac); the _History_ of Julius Africanus was perhaps also translated in this century, but it is lost. To the 5th century belong the versions of the Nicene canons, of which the Armenian text as preserved is barely intelligible, of the eucharistic rites called of *Basil, *Chrysostom, *Ignatius and others; also the *Hours or Breviary, the *Rites of Ordination, Baptism, of the making and release of Penitents, of Epiphany, and perhaps the many rites of animal sacrifice, for these are partly originals, partly versions of lost Greek texts. A mass of martyrs' acts were also rendered in this century, including parts of the lost collection made by Eusebius. Among these the *_Acts and Apology_ of Apollonius restore a lost 2nd-century text. The *_Canons_ of Sahak also purport to be translated from a Greek original about the year 330.

The Armenians were so busy in this century translating Greek and Syriac fathers that they have left little that is original. Still a number of historical works survive: *Faustus of Byzantium relates the events of the period A.D. 344-392 in a work instinct with life and racy of the soil. It was perhaps first composed in Greek, but it gives a faithful picture of the court of the petty sovereigns of Armenia, of the political organization, of the blood feuds of the clans, of the planting of Christianity. Procopius preserves some fragments of the Greek.

The *_History of Taron_, by Zenobius of Glak, is a somewhat legendary account of Gregory the Illuminator, and may have been written in Syriac in the 5th, though it was only Armenized in a later century.

*Elisaeus Wardapet wrote a history of Wardan (Vardan), and of the war waged for their faith by the Armenians against the Sassanids. He was an eye-witness of this struggle, and gives a good account of the contemporary Mazdaism which the Persians tried to force on the Armenians. *Lazar of Pharp wrote a history embracing the events of the 5th century up to the year 485, as a continuation of the work of Faustus.

*A history of St Gregory and of the conversion of Armenia by Agathangelus is preserved in Greek, Armenian and Arabic. The Arabic edited by Professor Marr of St Petersburg seems to be the oldest form of text. The Greek is a rendering of the Armenian. It is a compilation, and the second part which contains the _Acts_ of Gregory and of St Rhipsima seems wholly legendary. The Greek and Armenian texts were edited together by Lagarde.

*The _History of Armenia_ by Moses of Khoren (Chorene) relates events up to about the year 450. It is a compilation, devoid of historical method, value or veracity, from all sorts of previous authors, mostly from those which already existed in an Armenian dress. Some critics put down the date of composition as low as about 700, and it was certainly retouched in the late 6th century.

*A long volume of rhetorical exercises, based on Aphthonius, is also ascribed to Moses of Khoren, and appears to be of the 5th century. The *geography which passes under his name may belong to the 7th century. Various homilies of Moses survive, as also of Elisaeus.

Gorium wrote in this century a *_Life of Mesrop_, and Eznik a *_Refutation of the Sects_, based largely on antecedent Greek works. The sects in question are Paganism, Mazdaism, Greek Philosophy and Manicheism. A volume of *homilies under the name of Gregory the Illuminator, but not his, also belongs to this century, and a series of ascetic discourses attributed to John Mandakuni, who was patriarch 478-500.

Of the 6th and 7th centuries few works survive except anonymous versions of the *_Acts of Thomas_ (perhaps from the Syriac), of the *_Acts of Peter and Paul_, *of John (pseudo-Prochorus), *of Bartholomew, and of other apostles; also of *the Acts of Paul and Thekla, *of Titus, *of the Protevangel, *of the Testaments of the patriarchs, of the *_Gospel of Nicodemus_, or _Acts of Pilate_, of the *_Book of Adam_, of the *_Deaths of the Prophets_, of the *_History of Baruch_, of the *Apocalypses of Paul and of the Virgin Mary, of the *Acts of Sylvester, and of an enormous number of other similar apocryphs. Some of these may be of the 5th century. Two volumes of these apocryphs of the Old and New Testaments have recently been published at Venice. To these centuries belong also the versions of the Acts of the council of Ephesus, of Gangra, Laodicea and of other councils. To the late 7th century belong the *calendarial works of Ananiah of Shirak, who also has left a *_chronicon_ compiled from Eusebius, Andreas of Crete, Hippolytus and other sources. In the *_Letter-book of the Patriarchs_, lately printed at Tiflis, are to be found a number of controversial monophysite tracts of these and the succeeding three centuries, important for church history. It includes a mass of documents relative to the churches of Iberia and Albania. The chief literary monument of the 7th century is the history of the wars of Heraclius and of the early Mahommedan conquests in Asia Minor, by the bishop Sebeos, who was an eye-witness. The *history of the Albanians of the Caucasus, by Moses Kalankatuatzi, also belongs to the end of this century. To the middle of the 7th century also belong the translations of Aristotle's treatises *_On the Categories_, and *_On Interpretation_, and of *Porphyry's _Isagoge_, as well as of voluminous Greek commentaries on these books; the version of the *Grammar of Dionysius Thrax and an incomplete Euclid. The translator was one David called the Invincible, who also wrote monophysite tracts. At the end of this 7th century one Philo of Tirak is supposed to have made the version of the *History of Socrates, unless indeed it was made earlier. To this century also seems to belong the Armenian version of a *history of the Iberians, by Djuansher, a work full of valuable information.

The early 8th century was a time of great literary activity. Gregory Asheruni wrote an important *commentary on the Jerusalem Lectionary, and his friend *John the catholicus (717-728) commentaries on the other liturgical works of his church; he also collected all existing canon law, Greek or Armenian, respected in his church, wrote *against the Paulicians and Docetae, and composed many beautiful hymns. *Leoncius the priest has left a history of the first caliphs, and Stephanus, bishop of Siunik, translated the *controversial works of Cyril of Alexandria (whose _Glaphyra_ and commentaries, however, seem to have been translated at an earlier period). He also translated the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, commented on the Armenian breviary and wrote hymns.

In the 9th century Zachariah, catholicus, the correspondent of Photius, wrote many eloquent homilies for the various church feasts. Shapuh Bagratuni wrote a history of his age, now lost. Mashtotz, catholicus, collected in one volume the Armenian rituals.

In the 10th century (c. 925) the catholicus John VI. issued his *history of Armenia, and Thomas Artsruni a *history of his clan carried up to the year 936. Ananias of Mok (943-965) wrote a great work against the Paulicians, unfortunately lost. Chosroes wrote a *commentary on the eucharistic rites and breviary, *Mesrop a history of Nerses the Great; *Stephen of Asolik wrote a history of the world, and a commentary on Jeremiah; *Gregory of Narek his famous meditations and hymns; Samuel Kamrdjtsoretzi a commentary on the Lectionary based on Gregory Asheruni.

In the 11th century the catholicus Gregory translated many Acts of Martyrs, and John Kozerhn wrote a history, now lost, as well as a work on the Armenian calendar; Stephen Asolik a *history of Armenia up to the year 1004; *Aristaces of Lastiverd a valuable history of the conquest of Armenia by the Seljuk caliphs. We may also mention a *monophysite work against the Greek doctor Theopistus by Paul of Taron; *letters and poems of Gregory Magistros, who also was the translator of the *_Laws, Timaeus_ and other dialogues of Plato.

The 12th century saw many remarkable writers, mostly in Cilician Armenia, viz. Nerses the Graceful (d. 1165), author of an *_Elegy_ on the taking of Edessa, of *voluminous hymns, of long *Pastoral Letters and Synodal orations of value for the historian of eastern churches. *Samuel of Ani composed a chronicle up to 1179. Nerses of Lambron, archbishop of Tarsus, left a *Synodal oration, a *Commentary on the liturgy, &c., and his contemporary Gregory of Tlay an *_Elegy_ on the capture of Jerusalem, and various *dogmatic works. In this century the *history of Michael the Syrian was translated; Ignatius and Sargis composed *commentaries on Luke and *the catholic epistles, and *Matthew of Edessa a valuable history of the years 952-1136, continued up to 1176 by Gregory the priest. Mechithar (Mekhitar) Kosh (d. 1207) wrote an elegant *_Book of Fables_, and compiled a *corpus of civil and canon law (partly from Byzantine codes).

In the 13th century the following works or authors are to be noticed:--*history of Kiriakos of Ganzak, which contains much about the Mongols, Georgians and Albanians; *Malakia the monk's history of the Tatars up to 1272; *Chronicle of Mechithar of Ani (fragmentary); *Vahram's rhymed chronicle of the kings of Lesser Armenia; *history of the world, by Vartan, up to 1269. In this century mostly falls the redaction of a large fable literature, recently edited in three volumes by Professor Marr of St Petersburg.

14th century: *history of Siunik, by Stephen Orbelian, archbishop of that province 1287-1304; *Sempat's chronicle of Lesser Armenia (952-1274), carried on by a continuator to 1331; *Mechithar of Airivanq, a chronography; *Hethoum's account of the Tatars, and chronography of the years 1076-1307. John of Orotn (d. 1388) compiled commentaries on John's gospel and the Paulines, and wrote homilies and monophysite works; his disciple Gregory of Dathev (b. 1340) compiled a *_Summa theologiae_ called the _Book of Questions_, in the style of the _Summa_ of Aquinas, which had been translated into Armenian c. 1330, as were a little later the *_Summa_ of Albertus and works of other schoolmen.

15th century: *_History of Tamerlane_, by Thomas of Medsoph, carried up to 1447.

17th century, Araqel of Tabriz wrote a *history of the Persian invasions of Armenia in the years 1602-1661.

In the above list are not included a number of medical, astrological, calendarial and philological or lexicographic works, mostly written during or since the Cilician or crusading epoch. The hymns used in Armenian worship rarely go back to the 5th century; and they were still few in number and brief in length when Nerses the Graceful and his contemporaries more than doubled their number and bulk in the 12th century. Most Armenian poems embody acrostics, and their poets began to rhyme in the 8th century or thereabouts. Since the 15th century a certain number of profane poets have arisen, whose work is less jejune on the whole than that of the hymn and canticle writers of an earlier age. Gregory Magistros (d. 1058) abridged the whole of the Old and New Testaments in a *rhyming poem, and set a fashion to later writers. Such works as *_Barlaam and Josaphat_. the *_History of the Seven Sages_, the *_Wisdom of Ahikar_, the *_Tale of the City of Bronze_, were freely turned into verse in the 13th and following centuries.

It will be realized from the above enumeration of works written in each century that Armenian literature was purely monkish. There was no epic or romance literature; although this was not lacking in the contiguous country of Georgia, where there seem to have always been knights and ladies willing to read and keep alive a literature of poetry and narrative, not altogether suitable for monks, and more akin to Persian literature.

Other forms of faith than the orthodox had a hold in Armenia, particularly the Nestorian and the Manichean. Sundry works of Mani were translated in the year 588, but are lost. Perhaps certain works of Diodore of Tarsus survive, but the orthodox monks were so vigilant that there is little chance of finding any other monuments than those of the stereotyped orthodoxy.

The 16th century saw the first books printed in Armenian. A press was set up at Venice in 1565, and the psalms and breviary were printed. In 1584 the Roman propaganda began its issue of Armenian books with a Gregorian calendar. In the 17th century presses were working at Lembourg, Milan, Paris, Isfahan (where in 1640 a large folio of the _Lives of the Fathers of the Desert_ appeared), in Leghorn, Amsterdam (where in 1664 the first edition of the Hymn-book, in 1666 the first Bible, and in 1667 the first Ritual were printed), Marseilles, Constantinople, Leipzig and Padua.

The press which has done most in printing Armenian authors is that of the Mechitharists of Venice. Here in 1836 was issued a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian language, with the Latin and Greek equivalents of each word. At that time there was no dictionary of any language and literature to be compared with this for exhaustiveness and accuracy. There are now Armenian presses all over the world, reprinting old books or issuing new works, often translations of modern writers, English, French, Russian and German.

The chief collections of old Armenian MSS. are: at the convent of *Echmiadzin at Valarshapat; at Stambul in the library of the fathers of St Anthony; at Venice in the Mechitharist convent of San Lazaro; at the *Mechitharist convent in Vienna; in the *Royal library at Vienna; in the *Paris Bibliotheque Nationale; in the Vatican library; in the British Museum; in the *Bodleian; in the Rylands library; in the *Berlin and *Munich libraries; *in Tubingen; in St Petersburg, and in the *Lazarev institute at Moscow; at New Joulfa, the Armenian suburb of Isfahan. Private collections have been made by Mr Rendel Harris in Birmingham (presented to the university of Leiden); at Parham and elsewhere. A printed catalogue exists of those marked with an asterisk.

AUTHORITIES.--F. Combefis, _Historia Monothelitarum_ (Paris, 1648);
Arshak Ter Mikelian, _Die armen. Kirche, iv. bis zum xiii.
Jahrhundert_ (Leipzig, 1892); H. Gelzer, "Die Anfange der armenischen
Kirche" in the _Berichte der Koniglich. Sachsischen Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften: Historisch-philologische Classe_ (1895), p. 171;
Gutschmid, _Kleine Schriften_ (Leipzig, 1892), t. iii.; Langlois,
_Collection d'historiens armeniens_ (Paris, 1867) (the translations
often careless); E.W. Brooks, _The Syriac Chronicle_ known as
_Zachariah of Mitylene_ (London, 1899), p. 24; Dulaurier, _Recherches
sur la chronologie armenienne_ (Paris, 1859); Agop Manandian,
_Beitrage zur albanischen Geschichte_ (Leipzig, 1897); G. Owsepian,
_Die Entstehungsgeschichte des Monotheletismus_ (Leipzig, 1897);
Cardinal Angelo Mai, _Nova SS. patrum bibliotheca_, 6 vols. (Rome,
1844-1871), vol. ii. contains Latin version of Armenian canons;
Hergenrother, _Photius_ (Regensburg, 1867); Tchamchian, _History of
Armenia_ (in Armenian at Venice and English abridged translation
entitled _M. Chamich_ by John Audall, Calcutta, 1827); Domini Joannis
Onziensis, _Opera Latine_ (Venice, 1834); Nersetis Clajensis, _Opera
omnia Latine_ (Venice, 1833); A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus in the _Recueil
de la societe orthodoxe de Palestine_ (St Petersburg, 1892) (Armenian
correspondence with Photius translated); Enthymius Zigabenus,
_Panoplia, Patrol. Gr._ vol. 130, col. 1173; E. Dulaurier, _Histoire
de l'eglise armen._ (Paris, 1857); le Quien, _Oriens christianus_;
Mansi, _Concilia_, vol. 25; Steph. Azarian, _Ecclesiae Armenae
Traditio_ (Rome, 1870); A. Balgy, _Historia doctrinae catholicae inter
Armenos_ (Vienna, 1878); Clemens Galanus, _Conciliatio Ecclesiae
Armenae cum Romana_ (Rome, 1690); L. Alishan, _Sissouan, contree de
l'Armenie_ (Venice, 1893), in Armenian, but also in French
translation; _Recueil d'actes relatifs aux Armeniens_ (3 vols.,
Moscow, 1833); St Martin, _Memoires historiques sur l'Armenie_ (Paris,
1818); V. Langlois, _Voyage dans la Cilicie_ (Paris, 1861); H.G.O.
Dwight, _Christianity in Turkey_ (London, 1854); De Damas, _Coup
d'oeil sur l'Armenie_ (Lyon, 1887); H.F.B. Lynch, _Armenia_ (2
vols., London, 1902); J. Issaverdens, _Armenia, Ecclesiastical
History_ (Venice, 1875); E. Dulaurier, _Historiens armeniens des
Croisades_ (Paris); Giovanni de Serpos, _Compendio Storico_ (Venice,
1786); Garabed Chahnazarian, _Esquisse de l'histoire de l'Armenie_
(Paris, 1856); Gelzer, "Armenien" in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie
fur protestantische Theologie_ (ed. 3, Leipzig, 1897); Hefele, _Hist.
of Councils_, vols. 3 and 9; F. Neve, _L'Armenie chretienne_ (Paris);
P. Hunanian, _Histoire des canciles d'Orient_ (Vienna, 1847); Gr.
Chalathianz, _Apocryphes_ (Moscow, 1897), and other works; Brosset,
_Collection d'historiens armeniens_ (St Petersburg, 1874), and
numerous other works by the same author; J. Catergian, _De fidei
symbolo quo Armenii utuntur_ (Vienna, 1893); Ricaut, _The present
state of the Greek and Armenian Churches_ (London, 1679); H.
Denzinger, _Ritus orientalium_ (Wurzburg, 1863); Fred. C. Conybeare,
_Rituale Armenorum_ (Oxford, 1905); F.E. Brightman, _Eastern
Liturgies_ (Oxford, 1896); P. Vetter, _Chosroae magni explicatio
missae_ (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1880); L. Petit, articles on Armenian
religious history, councils, literature, creed and discipline in
_Diction. de theologie catholique_, cols. 1888-1968; F.C. Conybeare,
"The Armenian canons of St Sahak" in the _American Journal of
Theology_ (Chicago, 1898), p. 828; C.F. Neumann, _Geschichte der
armenischen Literatur_ (Leipzig, 1836); Simon Weber, _Die katholische
Kirche in Armenien_ (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1903); Sukias Somal,
_Quadro della Storia Letteraria di Armenia_ (Venice, 1829); M.V.
Ermoni, "L'Armenie" in _Revue de l'orient chretien_ (for year 1896);
F. Tournebize, "Histoire de l'Armenie" (_ib._ 1902-3-4-5); R.P.D.
Girard, "Les Madag" (_ib._ for year 1902); H. Hubschmann, _Armenische
Studien_ and _Grammatik_ (Leipzig, 1883 and 1895). Grammars by
Petermann (in _Porta Orientalium Linguarum_ series), by Prof. Meillet
of Paris, by Prof. N. Marr of St Petersburg (in Russian), by Joseph
Karst (of the Cilician dialect). Texts of most of the Armenian fathers
and historians have been printed by the Mechitharists of San Lazaro,
Venice, and are readily procurable at their convent. (F. C. C.)

ARMENTIERES, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, on the Lys, 13 m. W.N.W. of Lille on the Northern railway from that city to Dunkirk. Pop. (1906) 25,408. The chief building is the hotel de ville with a 17th-century belfry. There are communal colleges for girls and boys, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a national technical school. The town is an important centre for the spinning and weaving of flax and cotton; bleaching, dyeing and the manufacture of machinery are among the other industries. Its industrial prosperity dates from the middle ages, when, however, woollen, not cotton, goods were the staple product.

ARMET (diminutive of Fr. _arme_), a form of helmet, which was developed out of existing forms in the latter part of the 15th century. It was round in shape, and often had a narrow ridge or comb along the top. It had a pivoted or hinged vizor and nosepiece, and complete chin, neck and cheek protection, closely connected with the gorget. It is distinguished from the basinet by its roundness, and by the fact that it protects the neck and chin by strong plates, instead of a "camail" or loose collar of mail; from the salade and heaume by its close fit and skull-cap shape; and from the various forms of vizored burgonets by the absence of the projecting brim. It remained in use until the final abandonment of the complete closed head-piece.

ARMFELT, GUSTAF MAURITZ, COUNT (1757-1814), son of Charles II.'s general, Carl Gustaf Armfelt, was born in Finland on the 31st of March 1757. In 1774 he became an ensign in the guards, but his frivolity provoked the displeasure of Gustavus III. and he thought it prudent to go abroad. Subsequently, however, (1780) he met the king again at Spa and completely won the monarch's favour by his natural amiability, intelligence and brilliant social gifts. Henceforth his fortune was made. At first he was the _maitre des plaisirs_ of the Swedish court, but it was not long before more serious affairs were entrusted to him. He took part in the negotiations with Catherine II. (1783) and with the Danish government (1787), and during the Russian war of 1788-90 he was one of the king's most trusted and active counsellors. He also displayed great valour in the field. In 1788 when the Danes unexpectedly invaded Sweden and threatened Gothenburg, it was Armfelt who under the king's directions organized the Dalecarlian levies and led them to victory. He remained absolutely faithful to Gustavus when nearly the whole of the nobility fell away from him; brilliantly distinguished himself in the later phases of the Russian war; and was the Swedish plenipotentiary at the conclusion of the peace of Verela. During the last years of Gustavus III. his influence was paramount, though he protested against his master's headstrong championship of the Bourbons. On his deathbed Gustavus III. (1792) committed the care of his infant son to Armfelt and appointed him a member of the council of regency; but the anti-Gustavian duke-regent Charles sent Armfelt as Swedish ambassador to Naples to get rid of him. From Naples Armfelt communicated with Catherine II., urging her to bring about by means of a military demonstration a change in the Swedish government in favour of the Gustavians. The plot was discovered by the regent's spies, and Armfelt only escaped from the man-of-war sent to Naples to seize him, with the assistance of Queen Caroline. He now fled to Russia, where he was interned at Kaluga, while at home he was condemned to confiscation and death as a traitor, and his unjustly accused mistress Magdalena Rudenschold was publicly whipped to gratify an old grudge of the regent's. When Gustavus IV. attained his majority, Armfelt was completely rehabilitated and sent as Swedish ambassador to Vienna (1802), but was obliged to quit that post two years later for sharply attacking the Austrian government's attitude towards Bonaparte. From 1805 to 1807 he was commander-in-chief of the Swedish forces in Pomerania, where he displayed great ability and retarded the conquest of the duchy as long as it was humanly possible. On his return home, he was appointed commander-in-chief on the Norwegian frontier, but could do nothing owing to the _ordres, contre-ordres et desordres_ of his lunatic master. He would have nothing to say to the revolutionaries who in 1809 deposed Gustavus IV. and his whole family. Armfelt was the most courageous of the supporters of the crown prince Gustavus, and when Bernadotte was elected resolved to retire to Finland. His departure was accelerated by a decree of expulsion as a conspirator (1811). Over the impressionable Alexander I. of Russia, Armfelt exercised almost as great an influence as Czartoryski, especially as regards Finnish affairs. He contributed more than any one else to the erection of the grand-duchy into an autonomous state, and was its first and best governor-general. The plan of the Russian defensive campaigns is, with great probability, also attributed to him, and he gained Alexander over to the plan of uniting Norway with Sweden. He died at Tsarskoe Selo on the 19th of August 1814.

See Robert Nisbet Bain, _Gustavus III._ vol. ii. (London, 1895); Elof
Tegner, _Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt_ (Stockholm, 1883-1887). (R. N. B.)

ARMIDALE, a town in Sandon county, New South Wales, Australia, 313 m. by rail N. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 4249. It lies at an elevation of 3313 ft., in a picturesque mountainous district, for the most part pastoral and agricultural, though it contains some alluvial gold diggings. Antimony is found in large quantities near the town. Armidale is a cathedral town, being the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop and belonging to the joint Anglican diocese of Grafton; Armidale St Peter's, the Anglican cathedral, and St Mary's, the Roman Catholic, are both fine buildings. The town is the centre of great educational activity, its schools including the New England girls' school, St Patrick's college, the high school, the Ursuline convent and state schools. Armidale became a municipality in 1863.

ARMILLA, ARMIL or ARMILLARY SPHERE (from the Lat. _armilla_, a bracelet), an instrument used in astronomy. In its simplest form, consisting of a ring fixed in the plane of the equator, the _armilla_ is one of the most ancient of astronomical instruments. Slightly developed, it was crossed by another ring fixed in the plane of the meridian. The first was an equinoctial, the second a solstitial armilla. Shadows were used as indices of the sun's position, in combination with angular divisions. When several rings or circles were combined representing the great circles of the heavens, the instrument became an armillary sphere. Armillae are said to have been in early use in China. Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.) used most probably a solstitial armilla for measuring the obliquity of the ecliptic. Hipparchus (160-125 B.C.) probably used an armillary sphere of four rings. Ptolemy (c. A.D. 107-161) describes his instrument in the _Syntaxis_ (book v. chap, i.), and it is of great interest as an example of the armillary sphere passing into the spherical astrolabe. It consisted of a graduated circle inside which another could slide, carrying two small tubes diametrically opposite, the instrument being kept vertical by a plumb-line.

Armillary Sphere. A.D. 1636.]

No material advance was made on Ptolemy's instrument until Tycho Brahe, whose elaborate armillary spheres passing into astrolabes are figured in his _Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica_. The armillary sphere survives as useful for teaching, and may be described as a skeleton celestial globe, the series of rings representing the great circles of the heavens, and revolving on an axis within a horizon. With the earth as centre such a sphere is known as Ptolemaic; with the sun as centre, as Copernican.

The designer of the instrument shown no doubt thought that the north pole might suitably have the same ornament as was used to mark N. on the compass card, and so surmounted it with the _fleur-de-lys_, traditionally chosen for that purpose on the compass by Flavio Gioja in honour of Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily and Naples.

Armillary spheres occur in many old sculptures, paintings and engravings; and from these sources we know that they were made for suspension, for resting on the ground or on a table, for holding by a short handle, or either for holding or for resting on a stand.

AUTHORITIES.--Tycho Brahe, _Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica; M.
Blundeville, his Exercises_; N. Bion, _Traite des instrumens de
mathematique_; also _L'Usage des globes celestes_; Sedillot, _Memoire
sur les instrumens_; J.B. Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie
ancienne_; R. Grant, _History of Physical Astronomy_. (M. L. H.)

ARMINIUS, the Latinized form of the name of HERMANN, or more probably ARMIN (17 B.C.-A.D. 21), the German national hero. He was a son of a certain Segimer, a prince of the tribe of the Cherusci, and in early life served with distinction as an officer in the Roman armies. Returning to his own people he found them chafing under the yoke of the Roman governor, Quintilius Varus; he entertained for them hopes of freedom, and cautiously inducing neighbouring tribes to join his standard he led the rebellion which broke out in the autumn of A.D. 9. Heavily laden with baggage the troops of Varus were decoyed into the fastnesses of the Teutoburger Wald, and there attacked, the completeness of the barbarian victory being attested by the virtual annihilation of three legions, by the voluntary death of Varus, and by the terror which reigned in Rome when the news of the defeat became known, a terror which found utterance in the emperor's despairing cry: "Varus, give me back my legions!" Then in A.D. 15 Germanicus Caesar led the Romans against Arminius, and captured his wife, Thusnelda. An indecisive battle was fought in the Teutoburger Wald, where Germanicus narrowly escaped the fate of Varus, and in the following year Arminius was defeated. The hero's later years were spent in fighting against Marbod, prince of the Marcomanni, and in disputes with his own people occasioned probably by his desire to found a powerful kingdom. He was murdered in A.D. 21.

In 1875 a great monument to Arminius was completed. This stands on the Grotenburg mountain near Detmold. Klopstock and other poets have used his exploits as material for dramas.

Much discussion has taken place with regard to the exact spot in the
Teutoburger Wald where the great battle between Arminius and Varus was
fought. There is an immense literature on this subject, and the
following may be consulted:--T. Mommsen, _Die Ortlichkeit der
Varusschlacht_ (1885); E. Meyer, _Untersuchungen uber die Schlacht im
Teutoburger Walde_ (1893); A. Wilms, _Die Schlacht im Teutoburger
Walde_ (1899); F. Knoke, _Das Schlachtfeld im Teutoburger Walde_
(1899); E. Dunzelmann, _Der Schauplatz der Varusschlacht_ (1889); and
P. Hofer, _Die Varusschlacht_ (1888). For more general accounts of
Arminius see: Tacitus, _Annals_, edited by H. Furneaux (1884-1891); O.
Kemmer, _Arminius_ (1893); F.W. Fischer, _Armin und die Romer_
(1893); W. Uhl, _Das Portrait des Arminius_ (1898); and F. Knoke, _Die
Kriegszuge des Germanicus in Deutschland_ (1887).

ARMINIUS, JACOBUS (1560-1609), Dutch theologian, author of the modified reformed theology that receives its name of Arminian from him, was born at Oudewater, South Holland, on the 10th of October 1560. Arminius is a Latinized form of his patronymic Hermanns or Hermansen. His father, Hermann Jakobs, a cutler, died while he was an infant, leaving a widow and three children. Theodorus Aemilius, a priest, who had turned Protestant, adopting Jakob, sent him to school at Utrecht, but died when his charge was in his fifteenth year. Rudolf Snellius (Snel van Roijen, 1546-1613), the mathematician, a native of Oudewater, then a professor at Marburg, happening at the time to visit his early home, met the boy, saw promise in him and undertook his maintenance and education. But hardly was he settled at Marburg when the news came that the Spaniards had besieged and taken Oudewater, and murdered its inhabitants almost without exception. Arminius hurried home, but only to find all his relatives slain. In February the same year (1575), the university of Leiden had been founded, and thither, by the kindness of friends, Arminius was sent to study theology. The six years he remained at Leiden (1576-1582) were years of active and innovating thought in Holland. The War of Independence had started conflicting tendencies in men's minds. To some it seemed to illustrate the necessity of the state tolerating only one religion, but to others the necessity of the state tolerating all. Dirck Coornhert argued, in private conferences and public disputations, that it was wrong to punish heretics, and his great opponents were, as a rule, the ministers, who maintained that there was no room for more than one religion in a state. Caspar Koolhaes, the heroic minister of Leiden--its first lecturer, too, in divinity--pleaded against a too rigid uniformity, for such an agreement on "fundamentals" as had allowed Reformed, Lutherans and Anabaptists to unite. Leiden had been happy, too, in its first professors. There taught in theology Guillaume Feuguieres or Feuguereius (d. 1613), a mild divine, who had written a treatise on persuasion in religion, urging that as to it "men could be led, not driven"; Lambert Danaeus, who deserves remembrance as the first to discuss Christian ethics scientifically, apart from dogmatics; Johannes Drusius, the Orientalist, one of the most enlightened and advanced scholars of his day, settled later at Franeker; Johann Kolmann the younger, best known by his saying that high Calvinism made God "both a tyrant and an executioner." Snellius, Arminius's old patron, now removed to Leiden, expounded the Ramist philosophy, and did his best to start his students on the search after truth, unimpeded by the authority of Aristotle. Under these men and influences, Arminius studied with signal success; and the promise he gave induced the merchants' gild of Amsterdam to bear the further expenses of his education. In 1582 he went to Geneva, studied there awhile under Theodore Beza, but had soon, owing to his active advocacy of the Ramist philosophy, to remove to Basel. After a short but brilliant career there he turned to Geneva, studied for three years, travelled, in 1586, in Italy, heard Giacomo Zarabella (1533-1589) lecture on philosophy in Padua, visited Rome, and, open-minded enough to see its good as well as its evil, was suspected by the stern Dutch Calvinists of "popish" leanings. Next year he was called to Amsterdam, and there, in 1588, was ordained. He soon acquired the reputation of being a good preacher and faithful pastor. He was commissioned to organize the educational system of the city, and is said to have done it well. He greatly distinguished himself by fidelity to duty during a plague that devastated Amsterdam in 1602. In 1603 he was called, in succession to Franz Junius, to a theological professorship at Leiden, which he held till his death on the 19th of October 1609.

Arminius is best known as the founder of the anti-Calvinistic school in Reformed theology, which created the Remonstrant Church in Holland (see REMONSTRANTS), and contributed to form the Arminian tendency or party in England. He was a man of mild and liberal spirit, broadened by varied culture, constitutionally averse from narrow views and enforced uniformity. He lived in a period of severe systematizing. The Reformed strengthened itself against the Roman Catholic theology by working itself, on the one hand, into vigorous logical consistency, and supporting itself, on the other, on the supreme authority of the Scriptures. Calvin's first principle, the absolute sovereignty of God, had been so applied as to make the divine decree determine alike the acts and the destinies of men; and his formal principle had been so construed as to invest his system with the authority of the source whence it professed to have been drawn. Calvinism had become, towards the close of the 16th century, supreme in Holland, but the very rigour of the uniformity it exacted provoked a reaction. Coornhert could not plead for the toleration of heretics without assailing the dominant Calvinism, and so he opposed a conditional to its unconditional predestination. The two ministers of Delft, who had debated the point with him, had, the better to turn his arguments, descended from the supralapsarian to the infralapsarian position, i.e. made the divine decree, instead of precede and determine, succeed the Fall. This seemed to the high Calvinists of Holland a grave heresy. Arminius, fresh from Geneva, familiar with the dialectics of Beza, appeared to many the man able to speak the needed word, and so, in 1589, he was simultaneously invited by the ecclesiastical court of Amsterdam to refute Coornhert, and by Martin Lydius, professor at Franeker, to combat the two infralapsarian ministers of Delft. Thus led to confront the questions of necessity and free will, his own views became unsettled, and the further he pursued his inquiries the more he was inclined to assert the freedom of man and limit the range of the unconditional decrees of God. This change became gradually more apparent in his preaching and in his conferences with his clerical associates, and occasioned much controversy in the ecclesiastical courts where, however, he successfully defended his position. The controversy was embittered and the differences sharpened by his appointment to the professorship at Leiden. He had as colleague Franz Gomarus, a strong supralapsarian, perfervid, irrepressible; and their collisions, personal, official, political, tended to develop and define their respective positions.

Arminius died, worn out by uncongenial controversy and ecclesiastical persecution, before his system had been elaborated into the logical consistency it attained in the hands of his celebrated successor, Simon Episcopius; but though inchoate in detail, it was in its principles clear and coherent enough. These may be thus stated:

1. The decree of God is, when it concerns His own actions, absolute, but when it concerns man's, conditional, i.e. the decree relative to the Saviour to be appointed and the salvation to be provided is absolute, but the decree relative to the persons saved or condemned is made to depend on the acts--belief and repentance in the one case, unbelief and impenitence in the other--of the persons themselves.

2. The providence or government of God, while sovereign, is exercised in harmony with the nature of the creatures governed, i.e. the sovereignty of God is so exercised as to be compatible with the freedom of man.

3. Man is by original nature, through the assistance of divine grace, free, able to will and perform the right; but is in his fallen state, of and by himself, unable to do so; he needs to be regenerated in all his powers before he can do what is good and pleasing to God.

4. Divine grace originates, maintains and perfects all the good in man, so much so that he cannot, though regenerate, conceive, will or do any good thing without it.

5. The saints possess, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, sufficient strength to persevere to the end in spite of sin and the flesh, but may so decline from sound doctrine as to cause divine grace to be ineffectual.

6. Every believer may be assured of his own salvation.

7. It is possible for a regenerate man to live without sin.

Arminius's works are mostly occasional treatises drawn from him by controversial emergencies, but they everywhere exhibit a calm, well-furnished, undogmatic and progressive mind. He was essentially an amiable man, who hated the zeal for an impossible orthodoxy that constrained "the church to institute a search after crimes which have not betrayed an existence, yea, and to drag into open contentions those who are meditating no evil." His friend Peter Bertius, who pronounced his funeral oration, closed it with these words: "There lived a man whom it was not possible for those who knew him sufficiently to esteem; those who entertained no esteem for him are such as never knew him well enough to appreciate his merits."

The works of Arminius (in Latin) were published in a single quarto
volume at Leiden in 1629, at Frankfort in 1631 and 1635. Two volumes
of an English translation, with copious notes, by James Nichols, were
published at London, 1825-1828; three volumes (complete) at Buffalo,
1853. A life was written by Caspar Brandt, son of Gerard Brandt, the
historian of the Dutch reformation, and published in 1724; republished
and annotated by J.L. Mosheim in 1725; and translated into English by
the Rev. John Guthrie, 1854. James Nichols also wrote a life (London,
1843).

ARMISTICE (from Lat. _arma_, arms, and _sistere_, to stop), a suspension of hostilities by mutual agreement between two nations at war, or their respective forces. An armistice may be either general or particular; in the first case there is a complete cessation of hostile operations in every part of the dominions of the belligerent powers; in the second there is merely a temporary truce between two contending armies, or between a besieged fortress and the force besieging it. Such a temporary truce, when for a very limited period and for a special purpose, e.g. the collection of the wounded and the burial of the dead, is termed a _suspension of arms_. A general armistice cannot be concluded by the commanders-in-chief unless special authority has been previously delegated to them by their respective governments; otherwise any arrangement entered into by them requires subsequent ratification by the supreme powers of the states. A partial truce may be concluded by the officers of the respective powers, without any special authority from their governments, wherever, from the nature and extent of the commands they exercise, their duties could not be efficiently discharged without their possession of such a power. The conduct of belligerent parties during an armistice is usually regulated in modern warfare by express agreement between the parties, but where this is not the case the following general conditions may be laid down. (1) Each party may do, within the limits prescribed by the truce, whatever he could have done in time of peace. For example, he can raise troops, collect stores, receive reinforcements and fortify places that are not actually in a state of siege. (2) Neither party can take advantage of the armistice to do what he could not have done had military operations continued. Thus he cannot throw provisions or reinforcements into a besieged town, and neither besiegers nor besieged are at liberty to repair their fortifications or erect new works. (3) All things contained in places the possession of which was contested, must remain in the state in which they were before the armistice began. Any infringement by either party of the conditions of the truce entitles the other to recommence hostile operations without previous intimation.

ARMOIRE, the French name (cf. ALMERY) given to a tall movable cupboard, or "wardrobe," with one or more doors. It has varied considerably in shape and size, and the decoration of its doors and sides has faithfully represented mutations of fashion and modifications of use. It was originally exceedingly massive and found its chief decoration in elaborate hinges and locks of beaten iron. The finer ecclesiastical armoires or aumbries which have come down to us--used in churches for the safe custody of vestments, eucharistic vessels, reliquaries and other precious objects--are usually painted, sometimes even upon the interior, with sacred subjects or with incidents from the lives of the saints. The cathedrals of Bayeux and Noyon contain famous examples; the most typical English one is in York minster. By the end of the 14th century, when the carpenter and the wood-carver had acquired a better mastery of their material, the taste for painted surfaces appears to have given place to the vogue of carving, and the simple rectangular panels gradually became sculptured with a simple motive, such as the linen-fold or parchment patterns. In the treasury of St Germain l'Auxerrois the ends of the 15th-century armoires are treated in this way. In that and the two following centuries the keys and the escutcheons of the locks became highly ornamental; usually in forged iron, they were occasionally made of more precious metals. By slow degrees the shape of this receptacle changed--from breadth was evolved height, and the tall form of armoire became characteristic. The Renaissance exercised a notable effect upon this, as upon so many other varieties of furniture. It became less obviously and aggressively a thing of utility; its proportions shrank from the massive to the elegant; its artistic effectiveness was vastly enhanced by its division into an upper and a lower part. Enriched with columns and pilasters, its panels carved with mythology, its canopied niches filled with sculptured statuettes, and terminating with a rich cornice and perhaps a broken pediment, it was widely removed in appearance, if not in purpose, from the uncompromising iron-mounted receptacle of earlier generations. During the 16th century, when the surging impulses of the Renaissance had died away, the armoire relapsed into plainness, its proportions increased, and it was again constructed in one piece. Ere long, however, it grew more sumptuous than ever. Boulle encrusted it with marqueterie from designs by Berain; it glowed with _amorini_, with the torches and arrows of Cupid, with the garlands which he weaves for his captives, and when allusiveness left a corner vacant, it was filled with arabesques in ebony or ivory, in brass or white metal. While the royal palaces and the hotels of the great nobility were filled with those costly splendours, the ordinary cabinetmaker continued to construct his modest pieces, and by the middle of the 18th century the armoire was found in every French house, ample in width and high in proportion to the lofty rooms of the period. It is not to be supposed that so useful a piece of furniture was confined to France. It was used, more or less, throughout a considerable part of Europe, but it was distinctively Gallic nevertheless, and never became thoroughly acclimatized elsewhere until about the beginning of the 19th century, when it developed into the glass-fronted wardrobe which is now an essential detail in the plenishing of the bed-chamber, not merely in France and England, but in many other countries. The _armoire a glace_ was known and occasionally made in France as far back as the middle of the 18th century, and almost the earliest mention of it connects it with the scandalous relations of the Marechal de Richelieu and the beautiful _fermiere generale_, Mme de la Popeliniere, who had one made to mask a secret door. In the conventional and not very attractive wardrobe of commerce it is difficult to descry the gracious characteristics of the armoire of the Renaissance or the 17th century, and it is not altogether surprising that Theodore de Banville should have condemned one of the most solidly useful of household necessaries as a "hideous monster."