POPE JOAN AND THE WANDERING JEW.
In the history of the world a variety of imaginary personages have found a place, whom it has become difficult to dislodge. Created in the first instance by the blunders of some careless writer, or by the sickly fancy of some unsound judgment, they are adopted by popular favour, tricked up according to its caprices, and committed to the hands of tradition to mislead the opinions of posterity. The pretensions of a false Demetrius, a false Dauphin, a false Heraclius, a Lambert Simnel, or a Perkin Warbeck, are more easily disproved and set aside than those of the mere shadows which flit over the surface of history; too impalpable to be seized upon and compelled to render an account of themselves.
Among these phantoms are Pope Joan, and the Wandering Jew; of whom every one has heard something, though nothing to the purpose. Yet these imaginary personages are too closely connectedwith the mysteries of our faith to be otherwise than generally interesting.
For how many years did the legend of the Wandering Jew, the porter of Pilate, condemned to roam the earth till the second coming of Christ, and having his necessities provided for by five-pence, which remained inexhaustibly in his purse, obtain favour with the world—perpetually renewed and brightened by the inventive hand of genius! Even now, though no longer an article of belief among the enlightened classes, his story obtains sufficient credit with the vulgar to merit a certain degree of examination.
The first writer who signalized the existence of the Wandering Jew, was Matthew Paris, an English chronicler of the thirteenth century; who was perhaps ignorant that he was only renewing a fable of the Greeks; Suidas having recorded that a Greek named Pasès possessed a miraculous piece of money, which as often as he expended it returned again into his pocket.
Some inventors have too much modesty to pretend to originality. So it was with Matthew Paris; who affected to have learned the legend of the Wandering Jew from an Armenian Bishop, who spent some time in England. This eastern dignitary, he asserts, had actually seen and conversed with the Wandering Jew, whose name he stated to be Cartophilax; that he wasporter to the tribunal to which Jesus was conveyed by the Roman soldiers; and had familiarly known the Virgin Mary and the Apostles. All the romantic incidents of his story which have passed into an article of popular faith, were first related by Matthew Paris.
But may there not have been some allegorical or concealed sense connected with the first creation of the Wandering Jew? At this period, Jews were objects of universal persecution, and often publicly burnt. Is it not likely enough that Matthew Paris intended to typify the whole persecuted and wandering people of the Jews in the person of Cartophilax; or, may he not have purposed to afford a means of safety and impunity to any Jew who saw fit to take up the character?
For thirteen centuries, then—as for eighteen, now—the Jewish people had been driven from place to place, tracked like a beast of prey, and subjected to every species of ignominy. Their destiny, in short, was a mere extended exemplification of the fortunes of the Wandering Jew. May not, moreover, the eternal five-pence have been intended to show, that wherever he finds himself, a Jew can never be long in want of money? Montesquieu only expresses the general opinion on this subject, in saying, “Wherever you find gold, you will find a Jew.”
This theory will probably be regarded as moreapocryphal than the existence of Cartophilax! Nevertheless we would rather pin our faith on a fanciful interpretation, than admit that a writer of so much moment to the History of the World as the famous Matthew Paris, could voluntarily shake the stability of his Chronicles by the wanton fabrication of such a miracle.
The invention of Pope Joan is still more easily accounted for; as originating in the desire of the Reformed Church to expose to contempt the honour of the See of Rome. No contemporary writer so much as alludes to her existence; nor till sixty years after the period assigned as that of her adventures, do we find the monk Radulphus relating the scandalous chronicle of her pretended pontificate. A story of this description once set afloat, will never want for commentators; and a variety of other writers instantly seized upon it, improving the details at leisure.
Seldom, however, has an imposture been adopted by such grave judgments, or promulgated by such authoritative voices, as that of Pope Joan. But the fact is that party spirit, or rather sectarian spirit, blinded the eyes of these abettors of fraud. At the moment of the grand schism originating the Reformed Church, the partizans of the new Faith seized upon the old wife’s tale of Pope Joan, and converted it into a serious argument against the infallibility of Rome.
“You boast of the assistance of divine grace, you pretend to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,” said they to the Catholics; “that it directs your councils and suggests your elections. How came it, then, that with so omniscient a counsellor, you were deluded into promoting a woman to the Papal See?—The single name of Pope Joan ought to suffice to attest the incompetency of your Church!”
The history of this pretended personage has been too often related, and is of too gross a nature to deserve recital. Even the historians who have been most serious in its attestation, disagree in the leading incidents; some of them naming the female Pope Agnes, some Joan, and some Gilberta. Voltaire, who was little prone to defend the purity of the See of Rome, utterly discredits her existence; and in all Protestant countries, where the fable was first called into existence, the name of Pope Joan is cited only as a matter of jest and derision.
THE FABLES OF HISTORY.
It is surprising how many of the facts of history have been reduced into fictions by the careful investigations of modern enlightenment. For centuries, it was established as an undeniable enormity of the empire, that the Emperor Justinian put out the eyes of Belisarius. Tragedies, operas and romances, were grounded upon this cruel incident; and the arts have lent their aid to the perpetuation of a popular error.
Let us examine the real state of the case. In 563, a conspiracy was discovered against the Emperor Justinian; and the conspirators were arrested on the eve of executing their criminal design. Certain of his favourites, envious of the great name of Belisarius, suborned false witnesses, whose testimony made it appear that he was included in the plot; upon which, Justinian indulged in the bitterest reproaches against his perfidy. Belisarius, strong in his sense of innocence, and the consciousness of thegreat services he had rendered to the empire, disdained to justify himself; and Justinian, weak, versatile, and mistrustful, influenced by a paltry pusillanimity, caused him to be stripped of his offices, made prisoner in his house, and deprived of all attendants or companions.
This state of things continued for the space of seven months; when the innocence of Belisarius was, by the intervention of others, brought to light; and he was at once restored to his former honours and the confidence of his master. So far from being deprived of sight, and guided about by a youth, as our imaginations have been misled into depicting him by a variety of artists and men of letters, Belisarius died at an advanced age in the full enjoyment of his senses.
The two first authors who thought proper to load the memory of Justinian with the odium of having put out the eyes of Belisarius, were Crinitus and Raphael Mafféi, both belonging to the sixteenth century. No anterior writer makes the smallest allusion to this act of barbarity; which, had it been authentic, could scarcely have been buried in obscurity for a period of ten centuries. The event which probably gave rise to so monstrous a supposition was, the disgrace of Carpocratian; who, after being the chief favourite of Justinian, was driven into exile in Egypt, and compelled to beg his bread on thehighways. But even in this instance, the fallen man was not deprived of sight.
One day, a village priest who was preaching in France, on the instability of riches and the misfortunes of the great, perceiving his simple flock to be melted into tears by the pathetic nature of his recital, comforted them by adding, “Nevertheless, my brethren, take comfort, for, after all, these traditions may be greatly exaggerated.” It were as well, perhaps, if historians were equally candid, more especially the one who first treated of the cruel fortunes of Belisarius.
This great man had, in truth, no need of factitious enhancements to secure the sympathies of the sixteenth century; the nobleness of his character having fully equalled the greatness of his exploits. As the conqueror of the Goths, he sustained the fortunes of the empire; sacrificing himself for his master, and refusing a crown when the throne was easily accessible. After he had achieved the conquest of Italy, the jealousy of Justinian recalled him from his command. Yet when the fortunes of his country stood a second time in need of his sword, he did not hesitate to lay down his resentment, and take up arms for its defence.
A far more authentic instance of undeserved misfortune is the case of Œdipus, who, born the heir of the throne, was secretly removed from the palacein consequence of a prediction that he would become the murderer of his father. To avoid the accomplishment of the oracle, the infant was about to be destroyed; the servant, to whom the task was assigned, having literally pierced his feet, and suspended him to the branches of a tree; when unfortunately a shepherd, taking pity on the tortured babe, relieved him and conveyed him to the Court of the Queen of Corinth, by whom, being childless, he was reared as her son. At eighteen years of age, an oracle enjoined him to go in search of his parents; and on his travels, having killed a man by whom he was insulted, the victim proved to be his father.
Œdipus arrives at Thebes. A riddle is proposed to him, the sense of which he is so unfortunate as to guess; and having by this feat rid the country of the Sphinx, he receives the promised reward in the hand of the Queen of Thebes, who, in process of time, proves to be the mother of her young husband. In consequence of this parricide and incest, a frightful pestilence afflicts Thebes; and Œdipus in despair, puts out his own eyes, banishes himself from his native country, and is followed into exile by his daughter Antigone, who officiates as his guide.
Such misfortunes naturally inspired the minds of the heathens with a belief in the doctrine of fatality—a blind interpretation of events which also served to induce a belief in the marvellous, and confirmhalf the preposterous superstitions perpetuated by the weakness of the human race.
Nothing can be more groundless, by the way, than our vain assertion of being the only created beings who “contemplate Heaven with brow erect.” Not only do we share this distinction with the ourang-outangs, but with a variety of birds, such as the crane and the ostrich; which, on this point, are better qualified than ourselves, seeing that instead of the upper eyelid falling, the lower eyelid rises over the eye; thus leaving them more at liberty to raise their eyes to Heaven.
False pretensions and vulgar errors of this kind abound in the world:—as for instance, the belief that the pelican pierces her bosom to feed her little ones with her blood—that the scent of bean-flowers produces delirium—that the mole is blind—that the dove is a model of gentleness and conjugal fidelity; and how often are the questions still mooted whether Hannibal really worked a passage through the Alps with vinegar—whether the coffin of Mahomet be really suspended at Mecca between two loadstones—whether shooting stars be fragments of shattered planets, or souls progressing from purgatory—whether beasts of prey are afraid of fire; and whether human nature have ever exhibited affinities with the brute creation in the form of fauns, dryads, satyrs, or centaurs.
The fable of the centaurs explains itself naturally enough by the wonder created in the world by the first man hardy enough to reduce the horse to a state of submission, and convert it into a domestic animal. We know that a man on horseback has been regarded as a complex animal by many savage nations; just as the Peruvians, when attacked by the artillery of Pizarro, believed their invaders to be Gods, seeing that thunder was at their disposal.
As to fauns and satyrs, which probably consisted of shepherds whose lower extremities were clad in goat skins, Herodotus declares that a whole nation of them existed among the mountains of Scythia. Plutarch relates that, in the time of Sylla, a faun was caught at Nymphea near Apollonia, which was brought as a present to the Dictator. The creature could utter no articulate sound,—its voice consisting of a noise between the cry of a goat and the neighing of a horse; but exhibited social qualities, and was much addicted to female society. This was probably some deaf and dumb idiot, left by unnatural parents to perish in infancy, and miraculously preserved; as in the case of Peter, the Wild Boy, found during the last century in the forests of Westphalia, and maintained at the cost of the King of England to a good old age. A similar specimen of degraded humanity was exhibited at Paris underthe name of the Savage of Aveyron; and the historical fable of Valentine and Orson was probably founded on some similar circumstance.
According to Philostratus, a satyr was taken in Ethiopia of so mild and gentle a disposition, as to have been easily tamed; and that certain of the simeous tribes, such, for instance, as the ourang-outang called the Wild Man of the Woods, should have been considered a satyr by both Greeks and Romans, on a first inspection seems natural enough. St. Jerome, in his life of St. Anthony, asserts that he encountered a satyr in the desart, and that they conversed and breakfasted together.
We should have thought these holy personages more in danger of an encounter with wild beasts; concerning which peril, a passing remark may be made, that the idea of frightening them away by fire is a popular prejudice. Tavernier relates that some soldiers having lighted a great fire to preserve themselves from the damp, in a forest of Africa, were set upon by a lion, and that one of the men was greatly injured by this midnight intruder, which was luckily shot dead by one of his comrades.
As regards the popular opinion concerning the tomb of Mahomet, it is now proved to be at Medina instead of Mecca, where the belief of many centuries assigned it a place; but so far from being suspended in the air by a loadstone, the coffin lies on the groundsurrounded by an iron balustrade. A learned Jesuit, by dint of many patient experiments, ascertained the possibility of sustaining a human body in the air by the power of the loadstone. But the quantity employed only served to realize the miracle for the space of two seconds. On the discovery of the singular properties of the loadstone, as affecting the polarization of the needle, the vulgar naturally began to endow it with miraculous powers. In 1765, the Journal Encyclopédique published an Essay attributing to the loadstone the power of curing the tooth-ache; the person afflicted being required to turn his face towards the North Pole, and touch the aching tooth with the southern point of a magnetic needle. The system was pursued for a time by a variety of quack dentists, but soon fell to the ground.
With respect to shooting stars, philosophy remains undecided as to their origin. But vulgar superstition clings to the belief that any wish formed during the transit of one of these luminous bodies will be accomplished. This idea probably purported in the first instance to demonstrate the transitory nature of human wishes, as exemplified in the momentary glimpse of the meteor. Some philosophers attribute shooting stars to the encounter of the electric fluid with inflammable molecules in the atmosphere. Descartes asserts that they are terrestrial particles which, meeting in the air the second element, takefire and fall back to earth; leaving where they fall a viscous matter. The truth is that they have never been known to fall back upon the earth. Monsieur Biot has hazarded a conjecture that they may be fragments of comets, falling with immense rapidity through the realms of space.
If this point of popular prejudice remain unremoved, nothing can be more certain than that the mole possesses organs of vision—though small; and that the fable of the maternal tenderness of the pelican, originated in the flexible pouch in which she deposits the fish she collects for her own food, and that of her young. The proverbial fidelity of the dove to her mate has been equally disproved by naturalists; no person having ever kept a pair of doves without noticing that they are birds of a peculiarly irascible and quarrelsome nature.
MELONS AND MONSTERS.
It might form an important matter of inquiry for naturalists, whether the fruits appropriated by Providence to certain climates, do not become unwholsome when transferred to others by the intervention of art. Certain it is, that in various countries of the South, melons constitute an article of national food; whereas, in the North, they pass for one of the most pernicious productions of the vegetable kingdom; being the first article of food interdicted during the prevalence of the cholera.
The origin of the melon, however, appears very uncertain. Far from being indigenous in Italy, it was asserted by the Roman naturalists to have been brought from Africa by Metellus; while others believe it to have been derived from their earlier Asiatic conquests. Scipio is said by some to have first introduced it into Rome. From whatever sourcederived, the gardeners of Greece and Rome made the culture of the melon a subject of especial study. Pliny spoke of the delicacy and flavour of the fruit as well as of its indigestibility. It may be observed, however, that in the more ancient bas-reliefs and frescoes of fruit found in Herculaneum, the melon does not appear.
The modern arts of horticulture have added innumerable varieties of the melon to the round and oblong species known to the Romans; and Godoy, the Prince of Peace, devoted himself in Spain to the improvement of this favourite fruit. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the fine kind called the Cantalupe, reached us from that country; the name being derived from the village of Cantalupi near Rome, famous for the cultivation of its melons. In Spain and France, the melon is eaten with roast meat, at dinner; in England and Russia, it is eaten with sugar at dessert. By many people the crudeness is qualified with pepper and ginger; but the Bavarian mother of the Regent, Duke of Orleans, provoked much criticism in Paris by powdering her slice of melon with Spanish snuff, according to the custom in some parts of Germany.
A strange object of luxury in the same country consists in snails. A large white species of snail, much cultivated at Ulm, is sent to various parts of Germany. One of the popular errors concerningthese snails, is the opinion that when decapitated the body will produce a new head. Spallanzani and Voltaire tried the experiment on innumerable snails, and attest that a head was really reproduced. It is well known that the body of a fly will exist some time after being deprived of its head; and that, on crushing the shell of a snail, the creature is able to repair, by degrees, its shattered dwelling. But in spite of the authority of Spallanzani and Voltaire, we have no faith in the power of reproduction of a second head. Valmont de Bomare, after decapitating fifteen hundred, decided that the opinion was erroneous; and, unwilling to suppose that two such great authorities had imposed on public credulity, concludes that in their reluctance to the task, they merely cut off the nose and ears of the sensitive snails without effecting a positive decapitation. A fact untrue of the snail, however, has been proved as regards several varieties of polypi, which are able to reproduce themselves from fragments of a dismembered polypus. There is one species of polypus susceptible of being completely turned inside out, like a glove, without injury to the vital power!
Turenne, who wrote a Treatise on the nature of snails, may be called the Attila of the species, since he admits having decapitated thousands and thousands. He even affects compunction on the subject, after the example of the Greek physician, Herophilus,who dissected seven hundred bodies in illustration of his anatomical lectures in the theatre of Alexandria. Turenne asserts that, if Valmont de Bomare and Adanson found no renovation of head in the snails they decapitated, it was because they failed to supply their victims with the food which snails are organized to imbibe through the pores of their bodies by crawling over vegetable matter, even when deprived of their heads. He declares that a period of two years is indispensable for the reproduction of a head.
The discoveries of modern navigators have unquestionably added to our menageries a vast variety of animals unknown to the ancients, or known only by hearsay, and esteemed apocryphal. But, on the other hand, various animals with which the ancients pretended to be familiar have wholly disappeared; such as sphinxes and griffins, the phœnix, the salamander, the unicorn, besides many-headed serpents and dragons, which we now abandon to the emblazonment of heraldry.
The most famous dragons of antiquity were those which drew through the air the car of Medea. The philosophic Possidonius—who made war so valiantly against the gout, which he maintains to be no evil—speaks of a dragon which covered an acre of ground; and could swallow a knight on horseback with as much ease as the whale did Jonas. This was, however, an insignificant reptile compared with theone discovered in India by St. Maximus, Archbishop of Tyre, which covered five acres of ground.
Both in sacred and profane history, dragons have honourable mention. Cadmus is related to have destroyed a dragon; the garden of the Hesperides was guarded by a dragon; St. George triumphed over a dragon; and the Dragon of Wantley has become proverbial in English song. St. Augustin, Bishop of Hippona, speaks with authority of the existence of dragons; describing them as winged serpents which conceal themselves in caverns during the day-time, though they occasionally venture forth and rise into the air. From this it was inferred, by early naturalists, that the dragon of the ancients was one of the larger serpent tribes, having a cartilaginous substance similar to the wings of the bat, or flying-fish, attached to its body.
Suetonius declares that the Emperor Tiberius possessed a pet dragon, which was completely tame and used to eat out of his hand; probably an iguano, the sort of lizard which forms a luxurious object of food in the West Indies; and which, though perfectly harmless, has a frightful appearance. Crinitus records that, in the time of the Emperor Maurice, there was an inundation of the Tiber, which left behind it, on the land, an enormous dragon. The same writer mentions that the Emperor Augustus kept a prodigious dragon in his palace, which he used to leadabout with a string. A constellation serves to attest the existence of the dragon of Lernia.
The tame dragon of the imperial palace was probably a tame boa-constrictor similar to the one formerly kept in the library of the late Sir Joseph Banks.
Various are the records in ancient authors of prodigious serpents. Pliny declares that, in Africa, the army of Regulus was kept in check by an enormous serpent; a statement confirmed by Aulus Gellius and other historians, and admitted by Rollin and Bossuet in their Histoire universelle, and Histoire ancienne. Follard refutes it in his Commentary on Polybius; conceiving the fact of a serpent of one hundred and twenty feet keeping at bay a large army and its engines of war to be an insult to the prowess of the Roman warriors. The following is the opinion the celebrated Lacépède on this subject.
“Travellers who have penetrated into the interior of Africa,” says he, “give an account of prodigious serpents, who advance among the bushes and towering reeds of some vast jungle, like a huge beam suddenly endowed with motion. Herds of gazelles and other timid animals take flight on their approach; nor can iron penetrate the skin of the monster, which is, indeed, appalling when extended to its utmost length, and ravenous after food. The only chance of its extermination is by setting fire to the nearestbushes of the jungle; and thus raising, as it were, a rampart of fire between you and the gigantic reptile.
“Such, probably, was the serpent which arrested the progress of the Roman army on the coast of Africa. To compute its length at one hundred and twenty feet, after Pliny, would probably be an exaggeration; but the Roman naturalist adds that its skin remained some time suspended, as a trophy, in a temple in Rome. Unless we deny all authenticity to history, therefore, we are bound to believe in the existence of a prodigious serpent, which when irritated by hunger, was known to attack the Roman soldiers; and against which, in the sequel, they had successful recourse to their engines of war.”
In the same manner, a distorted account may hereafter reach posterity of the death of Chuny, the famous elephant, which so long inhabited a menagerie in London; until becoming rabid from the effect of high feeding and long confinement, a party of military was called in to despatch the infuriated animal by a discharge of musketry, which was with some difficulty effected.
To attest the authenticity of the serpent of the time of Regulus, Pliny expressly adds that the tradition is the more credible, because, in former times, the serpents called boas, frequently found in Italy, were of such prodigious size that, during the reign ofthe Emperor Claudius, so large a one was found on the Vatican hill, that after its destruction, a child was exhibited entire in its stomach. For many centuries, no boas have been found in Italy; though naturalists accord in asserting them to have existed there in the olden time; just as the kingdom of England, now wholly free from the larger beasts of prey, was formerly overrun with wolves.
St. Isidore of Seville discredits the existence of the Lernian hydra; inferring from its name that hydra only implied some torrent or lake which Hercules effectually confined within banks; thus giving rise to the tradition of his having crushed it with his club. The traditionary monster, called a gargouille, said to have lived near Rouen, and to have swallowed a prodigious number of victims, is now admitted to have been simply a whirlpool in the Seine, destroyed by an alteration in the banks effected by St. Romain, when Bishop of that See. The anniversary of this event, regarded as the deliverance of the city from a monster, was celebrated at Rouen till the period of the first Revolution; a prisoner being annually delivered by the city on the Festival of St. Romain in honour of the miracle. The gargouille or whirlpool, of Rouen, was but a modern edition of the hydra.
THE JEWS.
We have already alluded incidentally to the Jews. But the children of Israel have been too long and too perseveringly an object of persecution to all Christian nations, not to demand a more extended consideration.
Mankind, in the present age, though scarcely less disposed than of old to exercise the tyrannical influence of the strong over the weak, appear to have substituted political for religious animosities; and the war of sects has been converted into the feuds of parties. The days of the fagot and the pile are happily at an end; and instead of martyrs, sacrificed in the name of religion, the victim is forced to exclaim on the scaffold: “Oh, liberty! in thy name, how many crimes are committed!” The number of human victims sacrificed to religious intolerance in the various countries of the world, would, however, afford grounds for a fearful computation.
The very existence of the Jews may be regarded as among the miracles of the Christian religion. A wandering nation, without King, without country, without secular laws, maintained together only by the strength of a common worship, could never have resisted the persecutions and proscriptions of centuries, but for the intervention of the chastening hand of God. Even in the countries where their existence is the happiest, stigmatized by public detestation, and in highly Catholic nations treated as lepers, as parias, as infected sheep—condemned to the hardest, and most ignominious tasks—beaten, spat upon, despoiled, plundered, tortured, massacred—a prey to the cupidity of the great, and the brutality of the little—such is the history of the Jews from the days of Titus to the present time. Nevertheless, they not only subsist, but flourish, in spite of the universal prejudice against the name; maintaining unchanged, their laws, customs, usages, and even physiognomy. The abhorrence with which they are regarded by other nations, has necessitated intermarriages from generation to generation, which serve to maintain the pure identity of the race.
The Romans not only detested the Jews for the same motive which produced their hatred of the Christians, namely—the impossibility of converting them to the worship of the false Gods of Paganism, but confounded Jews and Christians together in acommon persecution. Yet this equality before the tribunals and executioners of the Emperors and Pro-Consuls of Rome, never availed to diminish the mutual hatred subsisting between them. No amalgamation was possible between them, even amid the flames of a funeral pile. Nero, on one occasion, attempted to illuminate Rome by means of Jews steeped in resinous matter, and thus committed to the flames.
No sooner had the Christians obtained supreme power, than they began, in their turn, to inflict upon the remnant of Israel all the persecutions they had themselves sustained at the hands of the Romans. The Jews were compelled to wear a cap surmounted by horns, to show that they were pre-destined to eternal punishment; and in a Council held at the Lateran, at the commencement of the thirteenth century, they were forced to adopt for robes, stuff of a yellow colour, bearing the representation of a wheel or rack. During Passion Week, and at Easter, it was lawful to attack them with any degree of ferocity. In many cities, it was the custom to inflict corporeal punishment on a Jew publicly, every Good Friday, before the great door of the Cathedral; in some, a positive crucifixion took place!
Eight times have the Jews been driven out of France. Dagobert enjoined them to embrace Christianity, on pain of banishment; Robert thePious issued the same edict; Philip Augustus, after crucifying several at Bray sur Seine, caused all their synagogues to be burned, seized their possessions, released their creditors, appropriated to himself a fifth of their substance, and the remainder to landholders of adjoining estates. Philippe le Bel dismissed them the kingdom, leaving them only the funds indispensable for the journey. Nevertheless they returned, to be again exiled by Charles VI. Under Louis XIII, was issued a new edict of banishment. It was only under Louis XVI, one of the most humane of Kings, that the Jews were restored to rights of citizenship in France. Nor was their condition better, at the same epochs, in Great Britain and other adjacent countries.
A singular chance directed the attention of Napoleon to the condition of the Jews. A representation of Racine’s “Esther” was given one night at the Opera for a benefit; and the following morning, Talma happening to breakfast with the Emperor, the conversation turned on the performance of the night before. As they were discussing the character of Mardochée, Champagny, afterwards Duc de Cadore, made his appearance, who was at that time Minister of the Interior. Napoleon instantly began interrogating him concerning the position and resources of the Jews in France; and desired that a report might be drawn up on the subject, and speedily submitted to him.
Champagny lost no time in obeying; and the results of this accidental circumstance was the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews.
The prejudice, however, attached for so many years to the remnant of Israel, is far from extirpated; and though in more than one country of Europe, the honours of chivalry have been bestowed upon wealthy Jews, influential in the financial operations of the kingdom, and consequently in its politics, the popular feeling against them is unchanged. It is even carried to a most unreasonable degree; and the Jews are reproached with the very pursuits and professions forced upon their adoption by Christian persecution. Commercial speculations were of course the sole resource of a people without country, and without protection; and though we are indebted to them for the useful financial substitute of bills of exchange, we use the name of Jew almost synonymously with that of extortioner, without regard to their commercial importance and utility.
The emancipation accorded them in France, was given chiefly for considerations developed ten years before by Monsieur de Clermont Tonnerre, and other celebrated orators before the National Assembly.
“The Code of Moses,” argued they, “is conceived in a twofold spirit—a religious, and a legislative. The political laws which it contains, have ceased to be important—being only applicable to a nationnationally combined and organized; whereas the Jews are a scattered and wandering tribe, rather than a nation. The religious laws are a case of conscience; serving to enlighten the spirit, and guide the social morality of the children of Israel. From the period of the destruction of the Temple, the Jews have politically ceased to exist; and these religious laws may be said to operate in France, upon Frenchmen of the Jewish persuasion; in Poland, upon Poles of the Jewish persuasion; in Germany, upon Germans of the Jewish persuasion, and so forth.”
Upon this showing, civil rights were conceded to them in France, on condition of their contributing their quota to the maintenance of the laws and Government of the country in which they were naturalized.
Till this epoch, a prejudice had prevailed in France that it was an article of faith and duty among the Jews, to deceive and defraud a Christian whenever it lay in their power; and that they were bound, from the moment of their birth, by the Jewish law, to a strong animosity towards us Christian people. Horrible rumours have been revived, at different times, in different countries, of secret sacrifices of the Jews, in which the blood of a Christian was a necessary component.
These questions were openly met and discussed in a manly and temperate manner, in the greatSanhedrim, composed of the highest and most enlightened Jewish authorities; when a peremptory denial was established to all these injurious charges. Prejudices nearly as absurd, and quite as groundless formerly existed in England against the Catholics; the removal of their civil disabilities being equally the result of the progress of public enlightenment.
As regards the question of usury so often imputed to the Jews, experience has proved of late years, that the most notorious extortioners of this description are of the Christian faith; and it is a question of ethics to inquire whether there be greater turpitude in openly demanding an interest of thirty per cent for a loan of money, or in obtaining the same profit by sale or barter of commodities. A considerable number of tradesmen who pride themselves upon their strict integrity, require a much higher ratio of profit than the per centage of the money-lending Jews; nor is it necessary to remind the reader that some of the most eminent bankers in Europe, renowned equally for their probity and liberality, are of the Jewish persuasion.
VERBAL DELICACY.
There are certain words which appear to offend public delicacy more than the very objects they designate; till it might almost be inferred that all the sensitiveness of human nature had concentrated itself in the ear. The study of ancient and modern languages will attest the truth of this assertion; for many things are to be learned in a vocabulary besides the idiom it pretends to teach.
The stern Romans, for instance, who affected so stoical a disregard of death, would not allow the word to be pronounced in their presence; though the lives of their children was by the law placed at their mercy. Their sense of delicacy would have been offended had it been mentioned before them that such a one was “dead.” It was necessary to say, “he hath lived.” In the noble defence of Milo, by Cicero, he dared not qualify by the appropriate word the act of assassination committed by the slaves of his client;but declared by periphrasis that under these circumstances, “the slaves of Milo did what it became them to do.”
To the title of King, the Romans had vowed an eternal hatred, created by the traditionary opprobrium of the Tarquins, and their contempt of the innumerable Kings subjected to their arms, and dragged behind their triumphal cars. But when Cæsar proclaimed himself Emperor, and assumed a more sovereign power than the history of nations had as yet recorded, the Roman people applauded the kingly office presented to them under any other than the name abhorred. The same circumstance occurred in France at the commencement of the present century. The French, after devoting themselves to the extermination of Kings, hailed with delight the coronation of an Emperor; though to proclaim himself “King” would have ensured the premature downfall of Napoleon.
Of late years, the ears of the world have become more than ever chaste and refined; and certain words freely used by Shakspeare, in presence of the Court of the Virgin Queen, and by Molière, in presence of that of the most dignified of European monarchs, are now utterly proscribed, and expunged from the modern stage. The fluctuations of opinion on these points, are highly diverting. Dean Swift relates that, in his early days, the word “whiskers” could not bementioned in a lady’s presence; a fact we should be inclined to class among the ingenious fictions of the Dean of St. Patrick; but that at the present day, that rational nation, the Americans, have not courage to pronounce the word leg, even in talking of the limb of a table or of a partridge. The false delicacy of the English takes refuge in a foreign language. All such articles of dress or furniture as are held of a nature unmentionable to ears polite, are named in French; as if the wordchemisewere a less explicit designation of an indispensable under garment than the matter of fact word shift! All this is contemptible hyprocrisy, and a silly compromise with common sense. Such an abbreviation as crim. con. conveys fully as indelicate an allusion as the same words written and pronounced in full.
The author of the School for Scandal objected to so great a variety of words as coarse and indelicate from female lips, that there sometimes existed a difficulty in narrating to him the ordinary events of life.
On the other hand, it is surprising how much may be effected by a change of name with those whose ears are more impressionable than their understanding. The French had signified pretty loudly at the revolution their national opposition to a conscription, and to thedroits réunis. Against these exercises of administrative tyranny, they were prepared tobreak into rebellion. Instead, however, of arguing with their pertinacity, the Government wisely applauded it; substituting for a conscription, the recruiting system, and for thedroits réunisthecontributions indirectes. We should be glad if any one would point out to us what was changed in these two important departments of public service, besides the name? This paltering, in a double sense, reminds us of the story of a Frenchman, who was examining a library with persons more enlightened than himself. “Ah! there are the works of my friend, Cicero,” cried he. “Cicéron, c’est le même que Marc-Tulle.”
AEROLITES AND MIRACULOUS SHOWERS.
The fall of aërolites, often termed by the vulgar a shower of stones, is either more frequent than in days of yore, or attracts more general attention.
The record of similar phenomena has, however, been handed down to us by the ancients; for we are told of a shower of stones which, in the days of Tullus Hostilius, fell upon the city immediately after the ruin of Alba.
“While the Senate was occupied in its deliberations,” says Livy, “a shower of stones fell from Heaven upon the Alban Mount. The Prince, astonished at the report of such a phenomenon, sent to ascertain the truth, and found that a shower of pebbles had really fallen, similar to hailstones.”
Before the time of the Romans, the Greeks had witnessed similar phenomena. In the Thracian Chersonesus there fell a huge greyish stone, which excited the greatest consternation.
A stone existed in Rome known as the stone of the Mother of the Gods, which had originally fallen from the sky, like that of the Thracian Chersonesus. It fell at Pessinuntum, in Phrygia, where the priests held it in great veneration. The oracle at Rome having given out that the fortunes of the Republic were secure if it could possess itself of this inestimable treasure, the Senate sent an embassy into Phrygia by Scipio Nasica, who enlarged upon the ties existing between the Phrygians and Romans through Æneas; and skilfully setting forth the power of Rome and the protection she was able to concede to the Pessinuntians, the priests gave up the sacred stone. It was immediately carried in procession to Rome, exposed to public view, and an annual festival instituted in its honour.
A similar stone, which stood near the Temple of Delphos, was equally venerated, and endowed with a still more marvellous origin; being supposed to issue from the belly of Saturn, the God of the stone eaters. Tradition recorded that Saturn, having swallowed it, and found it difficult of digestion, threw it up again, when it fell in Greece. Upon this point, Pausanias and Nonnus concur with the tradition.
In the sixteenth century, a descent of stones took place on Mount Lebanon, accompanied by a luminous globe. Various other instances might be cited from the ancients; but these may suffice to establishproof of identity between the modern and ancient phenomena. In most instances, they have been supposed to be of divine origin and of ominous nature. Damascius mentions that a physician of his day, named Eusebius, carried one about his person, which conduced greatly to the relief of his patients.
In the sixteenth century, it is stated that there fell near the Adda, in Italy, nearly twelve hundred stones, one of which weighed one hundred, and another sixty pounds. True is it that Cardan makes the assertion, which is therefore doubtful. But Gassendi, who is deserving of credit, states that on the 27th of November, 1627, with a clear atmosphere, at tenA.M., he saw a luminous stone, about four feet in diameter, descend from Heaven upon Mount Vaisian. It was enveloped in a luminous circle of various colours, and passed at a hundred paces from two men, who estimated its elevation at thirty-six feet. It gave out a hissing noise like a rocket, accompanied with a smell of sulphur, and fell two hundred feet from the spectators, plunging itself three feet into the soil. It was of a metallic hue, and weighed fifty-four pounds; and is still to be seen at Aix, in Provence. The largest ever known, fell at Ensisheim, in Alsace, in 1492; its weight being near three hundred pounds. In the Abbé Richard’s Natural History of the Air, thereis a description of a fall of stones which took place in 1768, in Maine; from which we extract the following passage:
“During a hurricane that took place near the Château of Lucé, in the Province of Maine, a clap of thunder was heard, followed by a noise similar to the roar of a wild beast; which was audible for many leagues round. Some persons in the parish of Périgné thought they perceived a dense body fall with great velocity into a meadow near the high road to Mans; and on hurrying to the spot, found the stone imbedded in the ground. At first, it was hot; but soon cooling, they were enabled to examine it at leisure. It weighed seven pounds and a half, and was in form triangular; or rather it had three protuberances, of which the one plunged in the earth was grey, and the two others black. A fragment being submitted to the examination of the Royal Academy of Sciences, for analysis, they pronounced it neither to originate in thunder, nor to have fallen from the skies, nor to be composed of mineral particles fused by the action of the electric fluid; but a species of pyrites, giving out a smell of sulphur during its solution. One hundred grains of this substance yielded, upon analysis, eight grains and a half of sulphur, thirty-six of iron, and fifty-five and a half of vitrifiable earth.” The evidence of science, however, seldom reaches the ear of thevulgar; and it would be difficult to persuade the populace that aërolites do not fall from the sky.
Aristotle, in mentioning the stone that fell in Thrace, rejects the idea of its coming from the heavens; and Pliny confesses that most naturalists are of the same opinion. This was a step towards the extinction of a popular error. Fréret denies the existence of atmospheric stones, and declares them to be volcanic emissions driven by the force of the winds. He supposes Mount Albano to have been formerly a volcano; and that the stones that fell must have issued from a re-opening of the crater. Falconet, the sculptor, wrote a volume to prove that Pliny was in error concerning atmospheric stones. While the learned world was thus at variance, the multitude was justified in asserting them to fall from the moon, since men of science were unable to prove the contrary.
On the 26th of April, 1803, there fell a vast number of atmospheric stones at Aigle, in the department of Orne. The peasants of the place, thinking it was the end of the world, fell on their knees invoking divine mercy; and even their betters shared their alarm. This phenomenon happened most opportunely, as the world of science, both in Paris and London, was just then discussing similar occurrences which had taken place in India and Provence; and after most diligent inquiry,the Institute resolved to despatch one of its members to the spot. Monsieur Biot, an enthusiast in the cause of science, arrived on the spot on the 16th of July, and collected the following facts.
“About one o’clock,P.M., the sky being calm, with only a few greyish clouds above the horizon, which did not diminish the fineness of the weather, a luminous globe was seen, from Caen, from Pont Audemer, from the vicinity of Alençon, Falaise, and Verneuil, rushing with great velocity through the atmosphere; and immediately afterwards, a violent explosion was heard at Aigle and thirty leagues round; lasting six minutes, and resembling a discharge of artillery followed by that of musketry, and terminating as with a roll of drums.
“A small cloud of rectangular form seemed to have been the origin of all this terrible noise; the broader side of which was towards the west. It appeared to be motionless throughout the phenomenon; vapours being emitted after each discharge. The cloud was very high in the air. The inhabitants of two villages, situated a league asunder, perceived it as if exactly suspended above their heads. A hissing noise, similar to a stone hurled from a sling, was heard wherever it hovered; and at the same time, numerous solid bodies fell, which being collected, proved to be meteoric stones.
“When tested, they were found to contain sulphur,iron in the metallic state, magnesia and nickel; which, in the mineral kingdom have no analogy.”
Monsieur Biot also stated that the direction of the meteor was precisely that of the magnetic meridian; an important remark, as a guide for future observations. The great point gained in this inquiry, is that the highest order of science, agreeing with the earliest professors, adopts what by progressive science was denied.
The fact of showers of stones being established, all that remains to be proved is their origin. Some still assert that they fall from the moon; others attribute them to volcanos. Neither fact can be proved; and the descent of aërolites at present remains a mystery.
One phenomenon often succeeds another; and shortly after the fall of stones at Aigle, a shower of peas took place in Spain, and the kingdom of Leon. This last phenomenon occurred in the month of May of the same year; and, in Spain, fifteen quintals of an unknown seed were collected after a violent storm; being round in form, white in colour, less than peas in size, and resembling no known seed. They seemed, however, to belong to the leguminous family of plants. Cavanilla, the botanist, analized them without being able to determine their class. These productions, at least, could neither be supposed to come from the moon, nor to have a volcanic origin. Some of the seeds were sown in the Botanic Garden of Madrid,but without result. This is, however, by no means a solitary instance of a miraculous shower.
Pliny, Livy, Solinus, and Julius Obsequius have recorded showers of blood, milk, wool, money, and pieces of flesh! Those authors make frequent mention of such occurrences; dupes, no doubt, to the traditions of the ancients. Lamothe Levayer, however, surpasses them all, and mentions the fall of a man from the sky. Unless from a balloon, or the scaffolding of some lofty building, we must be permitted to doubt; though he may, perhaps, allude to some individual carried up by the force of a whirlwind; for in the autumn of 1812, on the road to Genoa, a mule was raised up by the wind, sustained during thirty seconds in the air, then disappeared in a ravine, where it probably perished.
If we deny the existence of showers of blood, we must admit that there have been phenomena such as to justify impostors in propagating such delusions. During the Siege of Genoa, in 1774, there fell a red rain upon the suburb of San Pietro d’Arena, which caused much consternation among the inhabitants; the wind having carried up a quantity of red earth, which proved the cause of general alarm. A similar phenomenon took place, near Hermanstadt, in Transylvania.
“On the 17th of May, 1810,” says a German journal, “there was a rain of blood which lasteda quarter of an hour, accompanied by a violent storm, and gusts of wind towards the south-west. Being collected on the spot by a physician, and submitted to the chemical tests of sulphurated nitrous, muriatic acid, acetate of lead, lime water, mercury, and saponaceous spirit, it exhibited neither precipitation, nor loss of colour. Tested with a solution of alum and fixed alkali, the precipitate induced a belief that the colouring matter of this strange rain pertained to the vegetable kingdom.
To elucidate the mystery of the rain at Hermanstadt, it sufficed to inquire in what point was the wind. For on examining the localities in the southwesterly direction, the hills proved to be clothed with fir, in bloom, and the rain of blood was instantly explained. For in the North of Europe rains of a reddish yellow, impregnated with the bloom of the fir, constantly occur.
In 1608, the walls of Aix in Provence were covered with red spots, which the people conceived to be blood. But Peiresc, a man of profound science, undeceived them by proving them to be the spots left by a species of butterfly on emerging from its crysalis; the number having been immense that year at Aix.
Till balloons and other aërial carriages are used as engines of warfare, we despair of having to record an authentic shower of blood, or any other thancommon place hail, rain, and snow. There is an instance of a shower of money, or rather of false coinage, mentioned by Dion Cassius; who states that a certain rain turned copper white, assigning to it the hue of silver, which lasted for three days. This is far from miraculous; as it requires only a portion of volatilized mercury to mingle with the rain, as in the instance of the fir bloom, to produce such an effect.
Showers of milk are explained by cretaceous matter carried into the air by whirlwinds. The shreds of human flesh we read of are the red fragments vomited by volcanoes; while showers of wool consist of the down of certain trees, such as willows and osiers. Showers of cinders are of course the result of volcanic eruption. The wind conveys them a prodigious distance; for when Herculaneum and Pompeii were imbedded in lava, the ashes fell at Rome, and even in Africa.
About a century ago, the deck of a vessel sailing from Marseilles to Martinique was covered with ashes some inches deep, which were known to proceed from an earthquake in the Island of St. Vincent. No other cause could be assigned, though the vessel was one hundred leagues from the island. The velocity of a cannon-ball or shell has been calculated; but that of the wind, like the origin of the meteoric stones, remains a problem.
NOSTRUMS AND SPECIFICS.
The title of “Talisman” might be fairly prefixed to this chapter; but we will content ourselves with the word nostrum. Considering the number of these specifics, and the blind confidence of the world in their efficacy, the credulous must be surprised at the ailments which still afflict humanity. Previous to the introduction of quinine, the ague was supposed to be cured by dipping in three holy waters, in three different churches, on the same Sunday; a difficult remedy for people residing where there is only one church! A variety of charms for the ague are still in popular use.
Unsuccessful gamesters used formerly to make a knot in their linen; of late years they have contented themselves with changing their chair as a remedy against ill-luck. As a security against cowardice, it was once only necessary to wear a pin plucked from the winding sheet of a corpse. Toinsure a prosperous accouchement to your wife, you had but to tie her girdle to a bell and ring it three times. To get rid of warts, you were to fold up in a rag as many peas as you had warts, and throw them upon the high road; when the unlucky person who picked them up became your substitute. In the present day, to cure a tooth-ache, you go to your dentist. In the olden time you would have solicited alms in honour of St. Lawrence, and been relieved without cost or pain.
The greater number of these charms or remedies were not resorted to by the multitude alone, but recommended by Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. In the treaty on superstitions by the learned Curé, Thiers, these remedies are recorded; being about as effective as the talismans of the ancients, including the famed Palladium of Troy.
Rome had faith in celestial bucklers, and the stone of the Mother of the Gods. Virgil was skilled in the composition of talismans; a brazen fly attributed to him attained more celebrity in his time than the immortal “Georgics.” This fly being suspended from one of the gates of Naples, the charm proved so effective, that not a fly entered that city for a space of eight years. A trumpet held by a statue, also invented by Virgil, possessed the power of laying the dust in his garden!
Gregory of Tours mentions that the city of Pariswas secured from rats, snakes, and fires, during a long period by means of a rat, a snake, and dormouse of brass, which were destroyed by the Vandals. Pliny suggests that Milo of Crotona was indebted for his prodigious strength to a talisman, as we know that of Samson to have lain in his hair. The Egyptian warriors wore figures of scarabs, in order to fortify their courage; and Dr. Hufeland informs us that a German army having been defeated by the French in the olden time, talismans were found upon the bodies of the dead and wounded.
Among the first talismans was that mentioned by Suidas as worn by the Kings of Egypt to endow them with the love of justice. Pericles was proud of wearing a talisman presented to him by the Grecian ladies. Macrobus relates that the victors in the public games used to procure themselves little boxes, in which mathematicians had inclosed preservatives against envy; while Thiers informs us that an illustrious astrologer invented a talisman for intercepting the approach of flies to a house; when to his horror, no sooner was it suspended, than a fly, more daring than the rest, deposed a contemptuous mark of disregard upon the charm. The absurdity of these inventions, it is needless to assert; but let us consider the subject of the ancient talismans simply as subjects only of curiosity.
Talismans were cast in metal melted under theinfluence of a constellation communicating some specific virtue. Amulets, talismans of a secondary order, but equally efficacious, were formed of plants, figures designed on ivory, metals, or precious stones. Such designs were called “gamahez”—whence the word “cameo;”—and were preservatives against fever, rheumatism, gout, tooth-ache, paralysis, apoplexy, cold, and other diseases. The Platonists were great champions of amulets and talismans. Gaffard wrote a treatise in assertion of their efficacy, and to defend them against the imputation of magic. Not many years ago, the ladies of Paris used to wear iron rings, manufactured by the celebrated locksmith, Georget, which, like the galvanic rings now in fashion, were considered a guarantee against the headache. A few uneradicated roots of popular prejudice will always remain to produce a new crop.
How were simple mortals to suppose themselves in error when following such examples as Cato, Varro, and Julius Cæsar? The two first conceived that no evil could overtake them so long as they made use of certain mysterious words; and Cæsar, after falling out of his chariot, would not resume his place till he had recited certain words to which he attributed the virtue of warding off falls.
Father Thiers relates that, in his time, the Benedictines of Germany and France pretended topossess medals which protected them and their cattle from accidents, sorcery, and witchcraft. According to his version, about the year 1647, there was a vigorous crusade against sorcery, and many magicians were executed. At Straubing, several declared, when legally examined, that their maledictions were of no effect upon either the cattle or inhabitants of the Castle of Nattemberg, in which were deposited certain medals of St. Benedict, of which they gave the precise description. A certain number of initials were inscribed upon them, which being filled up with Latin words, signified “Divine cross, guide my steps, banish Satan, cease to tempt me, I know thy poisons, and will eschew them.” No sooner did the monks hear of this discovery than they began casting medals of a peculiar kind, which soon abounded in Germany.
The French Benedictines became equally zealous; and having struck a similar medal, published that it contained a charm against witchcraft and disease, and was a guarantee against all ailings of man or beast; the former requiring only to carry them in their pockets, the latter suspended bell-fashion from their necks.
Father Thiers so far from accrediting the efficacy of these medals, declares that the French Benedictines ought to be too enlightened to encourage such absurdities. But whether in good or bad faith,certain it is that they made a speculation of trading with the medals. Thiers also treats as impostors the curers of burns, and preventers of fire, who pretend to disregard the danger of fire arms. According to a popular tradition, a burn was cured by saying: “Fire lose thy heat, as Judas did his colour when he betrayed the Lord.” A chimney on fire was extinguished by making three crosses upon the chimney-piece. Any fire was quickly subdued by throwing an egg into the flames, which had been laid on the Thursday, or Friday of Holy Week, during the celebration of divine service. No fire arms availed against a person repeating thrice, “Malatus dives fulgiter regissa,” or wearing a band with a mystical inscription, every letter being separated by a cross. The learned father declares such practices to be absurd, and relates the following anecdote.
“An old woman of Louvain, who had an affection of the eyes was assured she had only to pronounce a few mysterious words to be cured. She instantly addressed a young scholar of the University, offering to present him with a new coat if he would write the words she dictated to him. The youth consented, and seemed to write as she dictated. But on delivering to her the sealed document, he enjoined her not to open it till she was cured, on which she presented him the new coat and withdrew. Shortly afterwards,her eyes being recovered, she confided her secret to a neighbour suffering from the same affliction; who taking the mysterious paper into her care, received the same benefit. Enchanted by their good fortune, they determined to know the secret, and broke the seal of the document; which was found to contain the following phrase, which the youth had maliciously inserted. ‘May the devil tear out thine eyes, old witch, and fill up the sockets with burning embers.’”
In the beginning of the last century, there were individuals who professed to have a powder which extinguished fire. This was contained in a barrel, and thrown into the flames. The barrel was in fact double, the external one being full of water, the internal charged with gunpowder sufficient to cause an explosion; and the water so dispersed, of course, extinguished the fire, if inconsiderable. Had the authors of this invention not kept it secret, we might have respected them; for though it produced no great result, an idea though only half conceived may be the forerunner of more important discoveries. Attempts have been made of late years to guarantee thatched roofs against fire, by impregnating them with a preparation of which we know not the composition. The success, though not complete, should not be discouraged; for repeated experiments may be finally successful. Flowers of sulphur are often employed for the extinction of fires in chimnies,possessing properties which render the action of fire less intense.
However absurd the miraculous virtues attributed to talismans and amulets, in some cases, the security they inspire may be of use to those who have faith in their power. Imagination counts for something in the moral organisation of man; and through the constant action and reaction of the one on the other, the body may be at times advantageously soothed by the serenity conferred on the mind through the influence of the fancy.