Chapter XXVI: Book XIV: §Voltaire§, in his Œdipus, makes Jocasta say, (2)

A little before he (Wolsey) expired (28th November, 1530) he addressed himself in the following words to Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, who had him in custody: “I pray you have me heartily recommended unto his royal majesty (Henry VIII.), and beseech him on my behalf to call to his remembrance all matters that have passed between us especially with regard to his business with the queen, and then will he know in his conscience whether I have offended him. He is a prince of a most royal carriage, and hath a princely heart; and rather than he will miss or want any part of his will, he will endanger the one half of his kingdom. I do assure you that I have often kneeled before him, sometimes three hours together, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but could not prevail: had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is the just reward I must receive for my indulgent pains and study, not regarding my service to God but only to my prince.”

Holinshead says in his famous old _Chronicles_:—

This year (1540), in the month of _August_, Sir _James Hamilton of Finbert_, Knight, Controller to the King (James V. of Scotland), who charged him in the king’s name to go toward within the castel of _Edinburgh_, which commandment he willingly obeyed, thinking himself sure enough, as well by reason of the good service he had done to the king, specially in repairing the palaces of _Striviling_ and _Linlithgow_, as also that the king had him in so high favour, that he stood in no fear of himself at all. Nevertheless, shortlie after he was brought forth to judgement, and convicted in the _Tolboth_ of _Edinburgh_, of certain points of treason, laid against him, which he would never confesse; but that notwithstanding, he was beheaded in the month of _September_ next insuing, after that he had liberallie confessed at the place of execution, that he had never in any jot offended the king’s majesty; and that his death was yet worthilie inflicted upon him by the Divine justice, because he had often offended the law of God to please the prince, thereby to obtain greater countenance with him. Wherefore he admonished all persons, that moved by his example, they should rather follow the Divine pleasure than unjustlie seek the king’s favour, since it is better to please God than man.

THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.

Several parallels to Solomon’s judgment, I. Kings iii. 16–28, are recorded. One occurs in _Gesta Romanorum_. Three youths, to decide a question, are desired by their referee, the King of Jerusalem, to shoot at their father’s dead body. One only refuses; and to him, as the rightful heir, the legacy is awarded.

In the Harleian MS., 4523, we are told of a woman of Pegu, a province of Burmah, whose child was carried away by an alligator. Upon its restoration another woman claimed the child. The judge ordered them to pull for it; the infant cried, and one instantly quit her hold, to whom the child was awarded.

The same story, substantially, is told in the Pali commentary on the discourses of Buddha, translated by Rev. R. S. Hardy, as follows:—

A woman who was going to bathe, left her child to play on the banks of
a tank, when a female who was passing that way carried it off. They
both appeared before Buddha, and each declared the child was her own.
The command was therefore given that each claimant should seize the
infant by a leg and an arm, and pull with all her might in opposite
directions. No sooner had they commenced than the child began to
scream; when the real mother, from pity, left off pulling, and
resigned her claim to the other. The judge therefore decided that, as
she only had shown true affection, the child must be hers.

Suetonius tell us that the Emperor Claudius, when a woman refused to acknowledge her son, ordered them to be married. The mother confessed her child at once.

PRECEDENCY.

The Emperor Charles V. was appealed to, by two women of fashion at Brussels, to settle the point of precedency between them, the dispute respecting which had been carried to the greatest height. Charles, after affecting to consider what each lady had to say, decided that the greater simpleton of the two should have the _pas_; in consequence of which judgment the ladies became equally ready to concede the privilege each had claimed. Napoleon, on the occurrence of a similar difficulty at a Court ball supper, based his decision on the question of _age_. Mr. Hey, of Leeds, at a dinner-party of gentlemen, made _merit_ the test.

THE LEGEND OF BETH GELERT.

In F. Johnson’s translation from the Sanscrit, occurs the following passage:—

In Ougein lived a Brahman named Mádhava. His wife, of the Brahmanical tribe, who had recently brought forth, went to perform her ablutions, leaving him to take charge of her infant offspring. Presently a person from the Raja came for the Brahman to perform for him a Párrana s’ráddha (a religious rite to all his ancestors.) When the Brahman saw him, being impelled by his natural poverty, he thought within himself: If I go not directly, then some one else will take the s’ráddha. It is said:—

“In respect of a thing which ought to be taken, or to be given, or of
a work which ought to be done, and not being done quickly, time drinks
up the spirit thereof.”

But there is no one here to take care of the child: what can I do then? Well: I will go, having set to guard the infant this weasel, cherished a long time, and in no respect distinguished from a child of my own. This he did and went. Shortly afterwards, a black serpent, whilst silently coming near the child, was killed there, and rent into pieces by the weasel; who, seeing the Brahman coming home, ran towards him with haste, his mouth and paws all smeared with blood, and rolled himself at his feet. The Brahman seeing him in that state, without reflecting, said, “My son has been eaten by this weasel,” and killed him: but as soon as he drew near and looked, behold the child was comfortably sleeping, and the serpent lay killed! Thereupon the Brahman was overwhelmed with grief.

This fable was introduced to give point to the moral:—The fool who, without knowing the true state of the case, becomes subject to anger, will find cause for regret. Its similarity to the well-known Welsh legend is so remarkable that we append Spencer’s touching ballad.

The spearman heard the bugle sound,
And cheerily smiled the morn;
And many a brach, and many a hound
Attend Llewellyn’s horn:

And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer:
“Come, Gelert! why art thou the last
Llewellyn’s horn to hear?

“Oh! where does faithful Gelert roam?
The flower of all his race!
So true, so brave; a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase!”

In sooth he was a peerless hound,
The gift of royal John;
But now no Gelert could be found
And all the chase rode on.

And now, as over rocks and dells
The gallant chidings rise,
All Snowdon’s craggy chaos yells
With many mingled cries.

That day Llewellyn little loved
The chase of hart or hare;
And small and scant the booty proved,
For Gelert was not there.

Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied,
When, near the portal-seat,
His truant Gelert he espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.

But when he gain’d the castle door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;
The hound was smear’d with gouts of gore,
His lips and fangs ran blood!

Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise,
Unused such looks to meet:
His favorite checked his joyful guise,
And crouch’d and lick’d his feet.

Onward in haste Llewellyn passed—
And on went Gelert too—
And still, where’er his eyes were cast,
Fresh blood-gouts shock’d his view!

O’erturn’d his infant’s bed, he found
The blood-stain’d covert rent;
And all around, the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent.

He called his child—no voice replied;
He search’d—with terror wild;
Blood! blood! he found on every side,
But nowhere found the child!

“Hell-hound! by thee my child’s devoured!”
The frantic father cried;
And to the hilt the vengeful sword
He plunged in Gelert’s side!

His suppliant, as to earth he fell,
No pity could impart;
But still his Gelert’s dying yell
Pass’d heavy o’er his heart.

Aroused by Gelert’s dying yell,
Some slumberer waken’d nigh:
What words the parent’s joy can tell,
To hear his infant cry!

Conceal’d beneath a mangled heap,
His hurried search had miss’d,
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
His cherub-boy he kiss’d.

Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread—
But, the same couch beneath,
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead
Tremendous still in death!

Oh! what was then Llewellyn’s woe;
For now the truth was clear:
The gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewellyn’s heir.

Vain, vain was all Llewellyn’s woe;
“Best of thy kind adieu!
The frantic deed which laid thee low,
This heart shall ever rue!”

And now a gallant tomb they raise,
With costly sculpture deck’d;
And marbles storied with his praise,
Poor Gelert’s bones protect.

Here never could the spearman pass,
Or forester unmoved;
Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass,
Llewellyn’s sorrow proved.

And here he hung his horn and spear;
And, oft as evening fell,
In fancy’s piercing sounds would hear
Poor Gelert’s dying yell!

ART STORIES.

Art has parallel stories of a tragic nature. In the

Chapel proud
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply,

stands an exquisite example of Gothic tracery-work, known as the Apprentice’s Pillar, neighbored by corbels carved with grim, grotesque human faces. How it came by its name may best be told as the old dame who acted as cicerone at the beginning of the present century used to tell it.

“There ye see it, gentlemen, with the lace-bands winding sae beautifully roond aboot it. The maister had gane awa to Rome to get a plan for it, and while he was awa, his ’prentice made a plan himsel, and finished it. And when the maister cam back and fand the pillar finished, he was sae enraged that he took a hammer and killed the ’prentice. There you see the ’prentice’s face—up there in ae corner wi’ a red gash in the brow, and his mother greetin’ for him in the corner opposite. And there, in another corner, is the maister, as he lookit just before he was hanged; it’s him wi’ a kind o’ ruff roond his face.”

In the same century that the Prince of Orkney founded the chapel at Roslin, the good people of Stendal employed an architect of repute to build them one new gate, and entrusted the erection of a second to his principal pupil. In this case, too, the aspiring youth proved the better craftsman, and paid the same penalty; the spot whereon he fell beneath his master’s hammer being marked to this day by a stone commemorating the event; and the story goes that yet, upon moonlight nights, the ghost of the murdered youth may be seen contemplating the work that brought him to an untimely end, while a weird skeleton beats with a hammer at the stone he wrought into beauty.

Another stone, at Grossmoringen, close by Stendal, tells where an assistant bell-caster was stabbed by his master because he succeeded in casting a bell, after the latter had failed in the attempt. It is a tradition of Rouen that the two rose-windows of its cathedral were the work of the master-architect and his pupil, who strove which of the two should produce the finer window. Again the man beat the master, and again the master murdered the man in revenge for his triumph. The transept window of Lincoln Cathedral was the product of a similar contest, but in this instance the defeated artist killed himself instead of his successful rival.

BALLADS AND LEGENDS.

Scott’s ballad of “Wild Darrell” was founded upon a story, first told by Aubrey, but for which the poet was indebted to Lord Webb Seymour. An old midwife sitting over her fire one dark November night was roused by a loud knocking at the door. Upon opening it she saw a horseman, who told her her services were required by a lady of rank, and would be paid for handsomely; but as there were family reasons why the affair should be kept secret, she must submit to be conducted to her patient blindfolded. She agreed, allowed her eyes to be bandaged, and took her place on the pillion. After a journey of many miles, her conductor stopped, led her into a house, and removed the bandage. The midwife found herself in a handsome bedchamber, and in presence of a lady and a ferocious-looking man. A boy was born. Snatching it from the woman’s arms, the man threw the babe on the blazing fire; it rolled upon the hearth. Spite of the entreaties of the horrified midwife, and the piteous prayers of the poor mother, the ruffian thrust the child under the grate, and raked the hot coals over it. The innocent accomplice was then ordered to return whence she came, as she came; the man who had brought her seeing her home again, and paying her for her pains.

The woman lost no time in letting a magistrate know what she had seen that November night. She had been sharp enough to cut a piece out of the bed-curtain, and sew it in again, and to count the steps of the long staircase she had ascended and descended. By these means the scene of the infanticide was identified, and the murderer Darrell, Lord of Littlecote House, Berkshire was tried at Salisbury. He escaped the gallows by bribing the judge, only to break his neck in the hunting-field a few months afterwards, at a place still known as Darrell’s Stile. Aubrey places Littlecote in Wiltshire, makes the unhappy mother the waiting-maid of Darrell’s wife, and concludes his narration thus: “This horrid action did much run in her (the midwife’s) mind, and she had a desire to discover it, but knew not where ’twas. She considered with herself the time that she was riding, and how many miles she might have ridden at that rate in that time, and that it must be some great person’s house, for the room was twelve feet high. She went to a justice of the peace, and search was made—the very chamber found. The knight was brought to his trial; and, to be short, this judge had this noble house, park, and manor, and (I think) more, for a bribe to save his life. Sir John Popham gave sentence according to law, but being a great person and a favorite, he procured a _nolle prosequi_.”

In Sir Walter’s ballad the midwife becomes a friar of orders gray, compelled to shrive a dying woman,

A lady as a lily bright,
With an infant on her arm;

and when

The shrift is done, the friar is gone,
Blindfolded as he came—
Next morning, all in Littlecote Hall
Were weeping for their dame.

It was hardly fair to make Darrell worse than he was, by laying a second murder at his door, merely to give a local habitation and a name to a Scotch tale of murder that might have been an adaptation of the Berkshire tragedy.

* * * * *

Somewhere about the beginning of the last century, an Edinburgh clergyman was called out of his bed at midnight on the pretext that he was wanted to pray with a person at the point of death. The good man obeyed the summons without hesitation, but wished he had not done so, when, upon his sedan-chair reaching an out-of-the-way part of the city, its bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded, and cut his protestations short by threatening to blow out his brains if he refused to do their bidding. Like the sensible man he was, he submitted without further parley, and the sedan moved on again. By and by, he felt he was being carried up-stairs: the chair stopped, the clergyman was handed out, his eyes uncovered, and his attention directed to a young and beautiful lady lying in bed with an infant by her side. Not seeing any signs of dying about her, he ventured to say so, but was commanded to lose no time in offering up such prayers as were fitting for a person at the last extremity. Having done his office, he was put into the chair and taken down-stairs, a pistol-shot startling his ears on the way. He soon found himself safe at home, a purse of gold in his hand, and his ears still ringing with the warning he had received, that if he said one word about the transaction, his life would pay for the indiscretion. At last he fell off to sleep, to be awakened by a servant with the news, that a certain great house in the Canongate had been burned down, and the daughter of its owner perished in the flames. The clergyman had been long dead, when a fire broke out on the very same spot, and there, amid the flames, was seen a beautiful woman, in an extraordinarily rich night-dress of the fashion of half a century before. While the awe-struck spectators gazed in wonder, the apparition cried, “Anes burned, twice burned; the third time I’ll scare you all!” The midwife of the Littlecote legend and the divine of the Edinburgh one were more fortunate than the Irish doctor living at Rome in 1743; this gentleman, according to Lady Hamilton, being taken blindfolded to a house and compelled to open the veins of a young lady who had loved not wisely, but too well.

BURIAL ALIVE.

In the year 1400, Ginevra de Amiera, a Florentine beauty, married, under parental pressure, a man who had failed to win her heart, that she had given to Antonio Rondinelli. Soon afterwards the plague broke out in Florence; Ginevra fell ill, apparently succumbed to the malady, and being pronounced dead, was the same day consigned to the family tomb. Some one, however, had blundered in the matter, for in the middle of the night, the entombed bride woke out of her trance, and badly as her living relatives had behaved, found her dead ones still less to her liking, and lost no time in quitting the silent company, upon whose quietude she had unwittingly intruded. Speeding through the sleep-wrapped streets as swiftly as her clinging cerements allowed, Ginevra sought the home from which she had so lately been borne. Roused from his slumbers by a knocking at the door, the disconsolate widower of a day cautiously opened an upper window, and seeing a shrouded figure waiting below, in whose upturned face he recognized the lineaments of the dear departed, he cried, “Go in peace, blessed spirit,” and shut the window precipitately. With sinking heart and slackened step, the repulsed wife made her way to her father’s door, to receive the like benison from her dismayed parent. Then she crawled on to an uncle’s, where the door was indeed opened, but only to be slammed in her face by the frightened man, who, in his hurry, forgot even to bless his ghostly caller. The cool night air, penetrating the undress of the hapless wanderer, made her tremble and shiver, as she thought she had waked to life only to die again in the cruel streets. “Ah” she sighed, “Antonio would not have proved so unkind.” This thought naturally suggested it was her duty to test his love and courage: it would be time enough to die if he proved like the rest. The way was long, but hope renerved her limbs, and soon Ginevra was knocking timidly at Rondinelli’s door. He opened it himself, and although startled by the ghastly vision, calmly inquired what the spirit wanted with him. Throwing her shroud away from her face, Ginevra exclaimed, “I am no spirit, Antonio; I am that Ginevra you once loved, who was buried yesterday—buried alive!” and fell senseless into the welcoming arms of her astonished lover, whose cries for help soon brought down his sympathizing family to hear the wondrous story, and bear its heroine to bed, to be tenderly tended until she bad recovered from the shock, and was as beautiful as ever again. Then came the difficulty. Was Ginevra to return to the man who had buried her, and shut his doors against her, or give herself to the man who had saved her from a second death? With such powerful special pleaders as love and gratitude on his side, of course Rondinelli won the day, and a private marriage made the lovers amends for previous disappointment. They, however, had no intention of keeping in hiding, but the very first Sunday after they became man and wife, appeared in public together at the cathedral, to the confusion and wonder of Ginevra’s friends. An explanation ensued, which satisfied everybody except the lady’s first husband, who insisted that nothing but her dying in genuine earnest could dissolve the original matrimonial bond. The case was referred to the bishop, who, having no precedent to curb his decision, rose superior to technicalities, and declared that the first husband had forfeited all right to Ginevra, and must pay over to Rondinelli the dowry he had received with her: a decree at which we may be sure all true lovers in fair Florence heartily rejoiced.

This Italian romance of real life has its counterpart in a French _cause célèbre_, but the Gallic version unfortunately lacks names and dates; it differs, too, considerably in matters of detail; instead of the lady being a supposed victim of the plague, which in the older story secured her hasty interment, she was supposed to have died of grief at being wedded against her inclination; instead of coming to life of her own accord, and seeking her lover as a last resource, the French heroine was taken out of her grave by her lover, who suspected she was not really dead, and resuscitated by his exertions, to flee with him to England. After living happily together there for ten years, the strangely united couple ventured to visit Paris, where the first husband accidentally meeting the lady, was struck by her resemblance to his dead wife, found out her abode, and finally claimed her for his own. When the case came for trial, the second husband did not dispute the fact of identity, but pleaded that his rival had renounced all claim to the lady by ordering her to be buried, without first making sure she was dead, and that she would have been dead and rotting in her grave if he had not rescued her. The court was saved the trouble of deciding the knotty point, for, seeing that it was likely to pronounce against them, the fond pair quietly slipped out of France, and found refuge in “a foreign clime, where their love continued sacred and entire, till death conveyed them to those happy regions where love knows no end, and is confined within no limits.”

RING STORIES.

Of dead-alive ladies brought to consciousness by sacrilegious robbers, covetous of the rings upon their cold fingers, no less than seven stories, differing but slightly from each other, have been preserved; in one, the scene is laid in Halifax; in another, in Gloucestershire; in a third, in Somersetshire; in the fourth, in Drogheda; the remaining three being appropriated by as many towns in Germany.

Ring-stories have a knack of running in one groove. Herodotus tells us how Amasis advised Polycrates, as a charm against misfortune, to throw away some gem he especially valued; how, taking the advice, Polycrates went seaward in a boat, and cast his favorite ring into the ocean; and how, a few days afterward, a fisherman caught a large fish so extraordinarily fine, that he thought it fit only for the royal table, and accordingly presented it to the fortunate monarch, who ordered it to be dressed for supper; and lo! when the fish was opened, the surprised cook’s astonished eye beheld his master’s cast-away ring; much to that master’s delight, but his adviser’s dismay; for when Amasis heard of the wonderful event, he immediately dispatched a herald to break his contract of friendship with Polycrates, feeling confident the latter would come to an ill end, “as he prospered in everything, even finding what he had thrown away.” The city of Glasgow owes the ring-holding salmon figuring in its armorial bearings to a legend concerning its patron saint, Kentigern, thus told in the _Acta Sanctorum_: A queen who formed an improper attachment to a handsome soldier, put upon his finger a precious ring which her own lord had conferred upon her. The king, made aware of the fact, but dissembling his anger, took an opportunity, in hunting, while the soldier lay asleep beside the Clyde, to snatch off the ring, and throw it into the river. Then returning home along with the soldier, he demanded of the queen the ring he had given her. She sent secretly to the soldier for the ring, which could not be restored. In great terror, she then despatched a messenger to ask the assistance of the holy Kentigern. He, who knew of the affair before being informed of it, went to the river Clyde, and having caught a salmon, took from the stomach the missing ring, which he sent to the queen. She joyfully went with it to the king, who, thinking he had wronged her, swore he would be revenged upon her accusers; but she, affecting a forgiving temper, besought him to pardon them as she had done. At the same time, she confessed her error to Kentigern, and solemnly vowed to be more careful of her conduct in future. In 1559, a merchant and alderman of Newcastle, named Anderson, handling his ring as he leaned over the bridge, dropped it into the Tyne. Some time after, his servant bought a salmon in the market, in whose stomach the lost ring was found: its value enhanced by the strange recovery, the ring became an heirloom and was in the possession of one of the Alderman’s decendants some forty years ago. A similar accident, ending in a similar way, is recorded to have happened to one of the dukes of Lorraine.

DEATH PROPHECIES.

Monk Gerbert, who wore the tiara as Sylvester II., a man of whom it was said that—thanks to the devil’s assistance—he never left anything unexecuted which he ever conceived, anticipating Roger Bacon, made a brazen head capable of answering like an oracle. From this creature of his own, Gerbert learned he would not die until he had performed mass in Jerusalem. He thereupon determined to live forever by taking good care never to go near the holy city. Like all dealers with the Evil One, he was destined to be cheated. Performing mass one day in Rome, Sylvester was seized with sudden illness, and upon inquiring the name of the church in which he had officiated, heard, to his dismay, that it was popularly called Jerusalem; then he knew his end was at hand; and it was not long before it came. Nearly five hundred years after this event happened, Master Robert Fabian, who must not be suspected of inventing history, seeing, as sheriff and alderman, he was wont to pillory public liars, wrote of Henry IV., “After the feast of Christmas, while he was making his prayers at St. Edward’s shrine, he became so sick, that such as were about him feared that he would have died right there; wherefore they, for his comfort, bare him into the abbot’s place, and lodged him in a chamber; and there, upon a pallet, laid him before the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain time. At length, when he was come to himself, not knowing where he was, he freyned [asked] of such as were there about him what place that was; the which shewed to him that it belonged unto the Abbot of Westminster; and for he felt himself so sick, he commanded to ask if that chamber had any special name. Whereunto it was answered, that it was named Jerusalem. Then said the king, ‘Laud be to the Father of Heaven, for now I know I shall die in this chamber, according to the prophecy of me beforesaid, that I should die in Jerusalem;’ and so after, he made himself ready, and died shortly after, upon the Day of St. Cuthbert, on the 20th day of March, 1413.”

BATTLES.

Three of the most famous battles recorded in English history were marked by a strange contrast between the behavior of the opposing armies on the eve of the fight. At Hastings, the Saxons spent the night in singing, feasting, and drinking; while the Normans were confessing themselves and receiving the sacrament. At Agincourt, “the poor condemned English” said their prayers, and sat patiently by their watch-fires, to “inly ruminate the morrow’s danger;” while the over-confident French revelled the night through, and played for the prisoners they were never to take. “On the eve of Bannockburn,” says Paston, who fought there on the beaten side, “ye might have seen the Englishmen bathing themselves in wine, and casting their gorgets; there was crying, shouting, wassailing, and drinking, with other rioting far above measure. On the other side we might have seen the Scots, quiet, still, and close, fasting the eve of St. John the Baptist, laboring in love of the liberties of their country.” Our readers need not be told that in each case the orderly, prayerful army proved victorious, and so made the treble parallel perfect.

BISHOP HATTO.

The legend of Hatto, bishop of Mayence, has been preserved in stanzas which are well remembered by school children. To avoid the importunity of the starving during a period of famine, the wicked prelate collected them into a barn,

“And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all.”

Thereupon he was attacked by an army of mice, and escaped to his tower (the Mäuseschloss) on a rock in the Rhine. But they quickly followed him and poured in by thousands, “in at the windows and in at the door,” until he was overpowered and destroyed.

“They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him.”

The same story is told of the Swiss baron, von Güttingen, who was pursued and devoured by mice in his castle in Lake Constance. It is also told, with a variation, of the Polish King Popiel. When the Poles murmured at his bad government, and sought redress, he summoned the chief remonstrants to his palace, poisoned them, and had their bodies thrown into the lake Gopolo. He sought refuge from the mice within a circle of fire, but was overrun and eaten by them.

Prototypes.

THE OLDEST PROVERB.

It appears from I Samuel xxiv. 13, that the oldest proverb on record, is, “Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked;” since David, in his time, declared it to be “a proverb of the ancients;” consequently older than any proverb of his son Solomon.

SHAKSPEARE SAID IT FIRST.

In one of Clough’s letters he tells an amusing story of a Calvinistic old lady, who, on being asked about the Universalists, observed,—“Yes, they expect that everybody will be saved, but we look for better things.” How like this is to the admirable confusion of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who, in his letter of challenge, (_Twelfth Night_, iii. 4,) concludes thus:—

“Fare thee well, and God have mercy upon one of our souls!
He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better!”

CINDERELLA’S SLIPPER.

A story somewhat similar to that of Cinderella has been handed down from the Greek. It is reported of Rhodopis,—a Thracian slave, who was purchased and manumitted by Charaxus of Mytilene, and afterward settled in Egypt,—that one day, while she was in the bath, an eagle, having flown down, snatched one of her slippers from an attendant, and carried it to Memphis. Psammitichus, the king, at the time, was sitting on his tribunal, and while engaged in dispensing justice, the eagle, settling above his head, dropped the sandal into his bosom. Astonished by the singularity of the event, and struck by the diminutive size and elegant shape of the sandal, the king ordered search to be made for the owner throughout the land of Egypt. Having found her at Naucratis, she was presented to the king, who made her his queen.

CURTAIN LECTURES.

Jerrold, in his preface to the later editions of _Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures_, makes this curious statement:—

It has happened to the writer that two, or three, or ten, or twenty
gentlewomen have asked him ... _What could have made you think of Mrs.
Caudle? How could such a thing have entered any man’s mind?_ There are
subjects that seem like rain-drops to fall upon a man’s head, the head
itself having nothing to do with the matter.... And this was, no
doubt, the accidental cause of the literary sowing and
expansion—unfolding like a night-flower—of §Mrs. Caudle§.... The
writer, still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct
line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden household
music, these words—§Curtain Lectures§.

Nevertheless, this phrase may be traced back more than two centuries, while the idea will be found in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, who says:—

Semper habet lites, alternaque jurgia lectus,
In quo nupta jacet: minimum dormitur in illo, &c.

Stapylton’s translation of this passage was published in 1647:—

Debates, alternate brawlings, ever were
I’ th’ marriage bed: there is no sleeping there.

In the margin of the translation are the words _Curtain-Lectures_.

Dryden in his translation of the same passage (published 1693) introduces the phrase into the text:—

Besides, what endless brawls by wives are bred;
The Curtain-Lecture makes a mournful bed.

And Addison, in the _Tatler_, describing a luckless wight undergoing the penalty of a nocturnal oration, says:—

I could not but admire his exemplary patience, and discovered, by his
whole behavior, that he was then lying under the discipline of a
_curtain lecture_.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

The metre, movement, and idea of Tennyson’s Charge of the Six Hundred at Balaklava, are evidently derived from Michael Drayton’s _Battle of Agincourt_, published in 1627. The first, middle and last stanzas of Drayton’s poem run thus:—

1.

Faire stood the Wind for France
When we our Sayles advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the Mayne,
At _Kaux_, the Mouth of _Seyne_,
With all his Martiall Trayne,
Landed King Harry.

8.

They now to fight are gone,
Armour on armour shone,
Drumme now to Drumme did grone,
To heare was wonder:
That with the Cryes they make,
The very earth did shake,
Trumpet to Trumpet spake,
Thunder to Thunder.

15.

Upon Saint Crispin’s day
Fought was this Noble Fray,
Which Fame did not delay
To England to carry;
O when shall English Men
With such Acts fill a Pen,
Or England breed againe
Such a King §Harry§!

THE FAUST LEGENDS.

About the middle of the thirteenth century began to spread the notion of formal written agreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his exclusive property after a certain time, during which he was to help them to all earthly good. This, curious to say, came with Christianity from the East. The first instance was that of Theophilus, vicedominus of the Bishop of Adana, a city of Cilicia, in the sixth century, whose fall and conversion form the original of all the Faust legends. The story of Theophilus may be found in various works, among them Ennemoser’s _Universal History of Magic_, which was translated by William Howitt.

AIR CUSHIONS.

Ben Jonson, in the _Alchemist_, makes Sir Epicure Mammon, in his expectation of acquiring the secret of the philosopher’s stone, enumerate to Surly a list of anticipated luxuries. Among these indulgences is this prophetic forecast of modern inflated India-rubber beds and cushions:—

“I will have all my beds _blown up_, not _stuffed_;
Down is too hard.”

THE CAT IN THE ADAGE.

Lady Macbeth thus taunts her husband:—

Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_,
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?

The adage is thus given in Heywood’s _Proverbs_, 1566:—

“The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete.”

The proverb is found among all nations. The Latin form of mediæval times was as follows:—

“Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.”

The Germans say:—

“Die Katze hätt’ die Fische gern; aber sie will die Füsse nit nass
machen.”

And the Scotch have it:—

“The cat would fain fish eat,
But she has no will to wet her feet.”

CORK LEGS.

A gentleman in Charleston conceived a very decided liking to a young lady from Ireland, and was on the eve of popping the question, when he was told by a friend that his dulcinea had a cork leg. It is difficult to imagine the distress of the young Carolinian. He went to her father’s house, knocked impatiently at the door, and when admitted to the fair one’s presence, asked her if what he had heard respecting her were true. “Yes, indeed, my dear Sir, it is true enough, but you have heard only half of my misfortune. I have got two cork legs, having had the ill-luck to be born in Cork.” This is the incident on which is founded Hart’s afterpiece called _Perfection_.

THE POPE’S BULL AGAINST THE COMET.

When President Lincoln was first asked to issue a proclamation abolishing slavery in the Southern States, he replied that such an act would be as absurd as the Pope’s bull against the comet.

The comet referred to is Halley’s. Concerning its first authenticated appearance, Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial Objects_, says:—

In 1456 it came with a tail 60° in length, and of a vivid brightness;
which splendid train affrighted all Europe, and spread consternation
in every quarter. To its malign influences were imputed the rapid
successes of Mahomet II., which then threatened all Christendom. The
general alarm was greatly aggravated by the conduct of Pope Calixtus
III., who, though otherwise a man of abilities, was but a poor
astronomer; for that pontiff daily ordered the church bells to be rung
at noontide, extra Ave Marias to be repeated, and a special protest
and excommunication was composed, exorcising equally the devil, the
Turks, and the comet.

SWAPPING HORSES.

The celebrated maxim of President Lincoln, “not to swap horses while fording the stream,” was anticipated centuries ago by Cyrus the Elder, King of Persia, in directing his troops to take up their several stations, when he said, “When the contest is about to begin, there is no longer time for any chariot to unyoke the horses for a change.”

WOODEN NUTMEGS.

Judge Haliburton, in that amusing book _The Clockmaker_, puts the following in the mouth of Sam Slick:—

That remark seemed to grig him a little; he felt oneasy like, and
walked twice across the room, fifty fathoms deep in thought; at last
he said, “Which way are you from, Mr. Slick, this hitch?” “Why,” says
I, “I’ve been away up South a speculating in nutmegs.” “I hope,” says
the Professor, “they were a good article,—the real right down genuine
thing?” “No, mistake,” says I, “no mistake, Professor; they were all
prime, first chop; but why did you ax that ’ere question?” “Why,” says
he, “that eternal scoundrel, that Captain John Allspice of Nahant, he
used to trade to Charleston, and he carried a cargo once there of
fifty barrels of nutmegs. Well, he put half a bushel of good ones into
each end of the barrel, and the rest he filled up with wooden ones, so
like the real thing, no soul could tell the difference until _he bit
one with his teeth_, and that he never thought of doing until he was
first _bit himself_. Well, it’s been a standing joke with them
Southerners agin us ever since.”

TRADE UNIONS.

Trade unions are not of such recent origin as many people suppose. “I am credibly informed,” wrote Mandeville, the philosophic author of the _Fables of the Bees_, one hundred and fifty years ago, in his _Essay on Charity and Charity Schools_, “that a parcel of footmen are arrived to that height of insolence as to have entered into a society together, and made laws by which they oblige themselves not to serve for less than such a sum, nor carry burdens, or any bundle or parcel above a certain weight not exceeding two or three pounds, with other regulations directly opposite to the interest of those they serve, and altogether destructive to the use they were designed for. If any of them be turned away for strictly adhering to the orders of this honorable corporation, he is taken care of till another service is provided for him; but there is no money wanting at any time to commence and maintain a lawsuit against any that shall pretend to strike or offer any other injury to his gentleman footman, contrary to the statutes of their society. If this be true, as I believe it is, and they are suffered to go on in consulting and providing for their own ease and conveniency any further, we may expect quickly to see the French comedy ‘Le Maitre le Valet’ acted in good earnest in most families; while, if not redressed in a little time, and these footmen increase their company to the number it is possible they may, as well as assemble when they please with impunity, it will be in their power to make a tragedy of it whenever they have a mind to.”

CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

On page 454 of Senator Wilson’s _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, he says (of a speech of the late Mr. Giddings): “He referred to the Treaty of Indian Springs, by which, after paying the slaveholders of Georgia the sum of $109,000 for slaves who had escaped to Florida, it added the sum of $141,000 as compensation demanded for the offspring which the females would have borne to their masters had they remained in bondage; and Congress actually paid that sum for children who were never born, but who might have been if their parents had remained faithful slaves.”

There is no clearer case of the payment of “consequential damages” in English or American history than this.

THE ORIGINAL SHYLOCK.

Gregory Leti, in his biography of Sextus V., tells us that Paul Secchi, a Venetian merchant, having learned by private advices that Admiral Francis Blake had conquered St. Domingo, communicated the news to a Jewish merchant named Sampson Ceneda. The latter was so confident that the information was false, that, after repeated protestations, he said, “I bet a pound of my flesh that the report is untrue.” “And I lay a thousand scudi against it,” rejoined the Christian, who caused a bond to be drawn to the effect that in case the report should prove untrue, then the Christian merchant, Signor Paul Secchi, is bound to pay the Jewish merchant the sum of 1000 scudi, and on the other hand, if the truth of the news be confirmed, the Christian merchant, Signor Paul Secchi, is justified and empowered to cut with his own hand, with a well-sharpened knife, a pound of the Jew’s fair flesh, of that part of the body it might please him. When the news proved true, the Christian insisted on his bond, but the governor, having got wind of the affair, reported it to the Pope, who condemned both Jew and Christian to the galleys, from which they could only be ransomed by paying a fine of double the amount of the wager.

Shakspeare reverses the order, and makes the Jew usurer demand the pound of flesh from the Christian merchant.

EXCOMMUNICATION.

The excommunication of the Roman Catholic Church, exactly described by anticipation in Cæsar’s account of their predecessors, the Heathen Druids, will be found in Cæsar, _de Bello Gallico_, Book VI. Chap, iii., the passage beginning “Si quis aut privatus aut publicus,” and ending “Neque honos ullus communicatur.”

They decree rewards and punishments, and if any one refuses to submit
to their sentence, whether magistrate or private man, they interdict
him the sacrifices. This is the greatest punishment that can be
inflicted among the Gauls; because such as are under this prohibition
are considered as impious and wicked; all men shun them, and decline
their conversation and fellowship, lest they should suffer from the
contagion of their misfortunes. They can neither have recourse to the
law for justice, nor are capable of any public office.

NAPOLEON I.

Compare the character and fall of Bonaparte with that of the king of Babylon as described in the remarkable language of the prophet Isaiah, chapter xiv., verses 4–22.

THE FALLS OF LANARK.

The following lines in an album formerly kept at the inn at Lanark evidently suggested to Southey his playful verses on _The Cataract of Lodore_:—

What fools are mankind,
And how strangely inclined
To come from all places
With horses and chaises,
By day and by dark,
To the Falls of Lanark!
For, good people, after all,
What is a waterfall?
It comes roaring and grumbling,
And leaping and tumbling,
And hopping and skipping,
And foaming and dripping,
And struggling and toiling,
And bubbling and boiling,
And beating and jumping,
And bellowing and thumping.
I have much more to say upon
Both Linn and Bonniton;
But the trunks are tied on,
And I must be gone.

In the varied music of Schiller’s _Song of the Bell_ may be found the same style:—

Der Mann muß hinaus The man must be out
Ins feindliche Leben, In hostile life toiling,
Muß wirken und streben Be struggling and moiling,
Und pflanzen und schaffen, And planting, obtaining,
Erlisten, erraffen, Devising and gaining,
Muß wetten und wagen, And daring, enduring,
Das Glück zu erjagen. So fortune securing.

TURGOT’S EPIGRAPH ON FRANKLIN.

Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.

This inscription, the highest compliment ever paid to the American philosopher and statesman, and originally ascribed to Condorcet and Mirabeau, was written by Turgot, Louis XVI.’s minister and controller-general of finance, and first appeared in the correspondence of Grimm and Diderot, April, 1778. It is, however, merely a modification of a line in the _Anti-Lucretius of_ Cardinal de Polignac, lib. i., v. 37:—

Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phœboque sagittas,

which is in turn traced to the _Astronomicon_ of Marcus Manilius, a poet of the Augustan age, who says of Epicurus, lib. i. v. 104,—

Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, viresque Tonanti.

Taking the laurel from the brow of Epicurus to place it upon the head of Franklin is not so inappropriate, when we recall the sketch of the former by Lucretius _illustrans commoda vitæ_.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Among those who sympathized most deeply with the oppressed inhabitants of New England, and who were earliest to express indignation at the outrages of British tyranny, were the militia-officers of North Carolina, most of whom were Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish nativity. On the 20th of May, 1775, the delegates of the Mecklenburg convention, “after sitting in the court-house all night, neither sleepy, hungry, nor fatigued, and after discussing every paragraph,” unanimously passed the following resolutions. It will be observed that this memorable Declaration of Independence contains many of the ideas, and some of the very phrases and forms of expression, afterwards employed by Mr. Jefferson, and incorporated in his draft of that great national document whose adoption, on the 4th of July, 1776, gave birth to a nation of freemen. The more striking similarities are here shown in Italics:—

§Resolved§, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner countenanced, the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this country, to America, and to the _inherent and inalienable rights_[36] of Man.

Footnote 36:

The same expression will be found in the original draft of Mr.
Jefferson. Congress changed the words “inherent and inalienable” to
“certain inalienable.”

§Resolved§, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby _dissolve the political bands which have connected_ us to the mother country, and hereby _absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection_, contract, or association with that Nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.

§Resolved§, That we do hereby _declare ourselves a free and independent people; are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association_, under the control of no power other than that of §our God§, and the general Government of the Congress; _to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor_.

§Resolved§, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this country, we do hereby ordain and adopt as a rule of life all, each, and every of our former laws; wherein, nevertheless, the Crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authorities therein.

§Resolved§, That it is further decreed that all, each, and every military officer in this county is hereby reinstated in his former command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations; and that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz.: a Justice of the Peace in the character of a “Committee-man,” to issue process, hear and determine all matters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, union, and harmony in said county; and to use every exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more general and organized government be established in the Province.

After discussing the foregoing resolves, and arranging by-laws and regulations for the government of a Standing Committee of Public Safety, who were selected from their delegates, the whole proceedings were unanimously adopted and signed. A select committee was then appointed to draw up a more full and definite statement of grievances, and a more formal Declaration of Independence. The delegation then adjourned about two o’clock §A.M.§

THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.

The recent political organization under this odd title, which presented one of the most singular features that has yet diversified American history, has its archetype in the Church whose progress in this country it was designed to oppose. In Italy there was formerly a strange order of monks calling themselves _Fratres Ignorantiæ_, “Brothers of Ignorance.” They used to bind themselves by oath not to understand nor to learn any thing, and answered all questions by saying, _Nescio_, “I do not know.” Their first proposition was, “Though you do not understand the words you speak, yet the Holy Ghost understands them, and the devil flees.” In opposing mental acquirements, they argued thus:—“Suppose this friar studies and becomes a learned man, the consequence will be that he will want to become our superior: therefore, put the sack around his neck, and let him go begging from house to house, in town and country.”

THE ORIGINAL OF BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.

_The Isle of Man, or the Legal Proceedings in Manshire against Sin, wherein, by way of a continual Allegory, the chief malefactors disturbing both Church and Commonwealth are detected and attached, with their arraignment and judicial trial, according to the laws of England; the spiritual use thereof, with an apology for the manner of handling most necessary to be first read, for direction in the right use of the allegory. By the Rev. Richard Bernard._

An allegory with the above title, originally published more than two hundred years ago, was reprinted in Bristol, England, in 1803. In a note to this edition, addressed to the reader, the editor states that the work is prized as well on account of the ingenuity of the performance as the probability of its having suggested to Mr. John Bunyan the first idea of his Pilgrim’s Progress, and of his Holy War, which was intimated on a leaf facing the title-page, by the late Rev. Mr. Toplady.

The editor says, “That Bunyan had seen the book may be inferred from its extensive circulation, for in one year only after its first publication it ran through seven editions.” He then proceeds to the internal evidence, and points out a supposed similarity between the characters in the two works, as between Wilful Will of the one and Will-be-Will of the other; Mr. Worldly Wiseman of Bunyan and Sir Worldly Wise of Bernard; Soul’s Town of Bernard and Bunyan’s Town of Man’s Soul, &c.