Many instances are on record of an equally serious termination to these foolish practical jokes. Witness the well-known story of the young lady, who, after boasting of her intrepidity, had a skeleton from a neighbouring surgery brought into her bed-room by her brothers and some young friends staying in her father’s house. On retiring to rest, these cruel jesters listened anxiously for the shrieks which they hoped would betray her cowardice, and were greatly disappointed to find her as self-possessed as she had announced; for instead of screaming, she went quietly to bed. But alas! next morning, when the servant entered her room, she was found playing with the skeleton, in a state of complete fatuity!—
In the southern provinces of France, there prevails a superstition, derived probably from the lycanthropy of the ancients, that certain persons assume at night the form of wolves, and roam the country for prey, under the name ofloup-garoux; a fable which gave rise to Perrault’s charming fairy-tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
In a neighbourhood said to be frequented by one of these devastators, who was of course no other than a man in wolf’s clothing, who, in this assumed character pillaged the adjacent farms, agarde champêtreor country constable, who had been severaltimes attacked by the supposed monster, contrived to lop off his paw with a hatchet; and, on the escape of theloup-garou, found, as he expected, that the furry paw contained a human hand! All the labourers of the neighbourhood were accordingly visited by the gendarmes to ascertain, by his mutilation, the identity of the sheep-stealer. But the delinquent had already fled the country; and the imputed cause of his flight was confirmed a few years afterwards, by his re-appearance in another department of France, maimed of his left hand!
Sometimes, theseloup-garouxare madmen, whose insanity has taken this monomaniacal form; as in the instance of the vintager near Padua, in the sixteenth century, who was apprehended on a charge of furiously biting his neighbours on pretence of his lycanthropic propensities. When reminded that his face was unchanged, while the realloup-garouxhave always a wolfish physiognony, he asserted that he was permitted to wear his wolf-skin inwards; whereupon the barbarous village tribunal by which he was tried, ordered his hands to be amputated and skinned, to ascertain the truth of the assertion!
Inflammation ensued, and the wretched lunatic died of his wounds!—
APOCRYPHAL ANIMALS.
The tarantula is a spider about the size of a nut; the head being surmounted by two horns charged with venomous matter. It has also antennæ which become violently agitated at the sight of its prey; with eight legs, and the same number of eyes, usually of a grey colour, but occasionally marked with livid spots upon a blueish ground. This variety is considered the most dangerous. The tarantula is hairy in the body, and lies torpid in the earth during winter. It revives at the return of spring, when the inhabitants of the district wear half boots for the protection of their legs.
In the month of June which is their breeding season, their venom acquires more virulence. The part wounded by this animal becomes livid, yellow, or black; and the victim sinks into despondency, as in cases of hydrophobia. The following accountof the bite of a tarantula is borrowed from the letters of the physician St. André.
A Neapolitan soldier who had been bitten by a tarantula, though apparently cured, suffered from an annual attack of delirium, after which he used to sink into a state of profound melancholy; his face becoming livid, his sight obscure, his power of breathing checked, accompanied by sighs and heavings. Sometimes he fell senseless, and devoid of pulsation; ejecting blood from his nose and mouth, and apparently dying. Recourse was had to the influence of music; and the patient began to revive at the sound, his hands marking the measure, and the feet being similarly affected. Suddenly rising and laying hold of a bystander, he began to dance with the greatest agility during an uninterrupted course of four-and-twenty hours. His strength was supported by administering to him wine, milk, and fresh eggs. If he appeared to relapse; the music was repeated, on which he resumed his dancing. This unfortunate being used to fall prostrate if the music accidentally stopped, and imagine that the tarantula had again stung him. After a few years he died, in one of these annual attacks of delirium.
St. André is not the only man of science who attributes awful effects to the bite of the tarantula. Baglini, a man of considerable eminence, maintainsthat not only the bite causes the patient to dance, but that the insect itself is readily excitable by music.
The properties attributed to the tarantula, in modern times, are not borne out by the testimony of the ancients. Dr. Pinel, in his commentaries upon the works of Baglini, a most eminent authority in the World of Science, quotes the adverse opinion of another man of acknowledged merit, Epiphany-Ferdinandi, who declares that many persons of his acquaintance had been bitten by tarantulas, without experiencing any other inconvenience than might have occurred from the sting of a wasp. Thus reduced to the class of a venomous spider, it becomes stripped of its magic powers as the scorpion ceased to be a salamander, when the ordeal of burning alcohol was found to be invariably fatal.
The renown of the salamander is, however, of far more ancient date than that of the tarantula. Aristotle, Pliny, Œlian, Nicander, all the illustrious apostles of the marvellous, declare that the salamander lives in the midst of flames, and exercises such a control over them, that one salamander was capable of extinguishing the Lemnian forges. In the time of Henri II., the famous Ambroise Paré, pronounced the salamander to be incombustible. Others assertthat they have seen salamanders extinguish burning embers by emitting a viscous humour, and Benvenuto Cellini, in his Memoirs, gives an account of having seen a salamander in the midst of his fire. The salamander, or rather the newt that bears that name, partakes of the lizard and frog, being generally from five to six inches in length. Naturalists admit two kinds, the land and the water salamander. Maupertius, among many others, submitted both species to the test of fire, and the result was the same as with any other animal.
The were-wolves of antiquity, andloup-garouxof the middle ages, disappeared in the open daylight of modern science. Virgil confers on Mœris the power of transforming himself into a wolf, Varro Pamponius, Mela, Strabo, ascribe the same faculty to various individuals skilled in the art of magic. In the annals of the early French courts of law, there may be found many instances of condemnation for witchcraft and transformation into were-wolves for criminal purposes; and more than one of these wretched victims, probably in a fit of mental aberration, pleaded guilty to the accusation.
In 1521, Pierre Burgot and Michael Verdun, confessed before the Parliament of Besançon, that they had frequently transformed themselves into were-wolves, and attacked little girls and boys. Halfa century later, the Parliament of Paris condemned to the flames Jacques Rollet for having transformed himself into a were-wolf, and half devoured a little boy. If we can believe the account of Job Pincel, Constantinople was so infested with were-wolves, in the middle of the sixteenth century, that the Sultan went forth with his guard and exterminated one hundred and fifty, when the remainder took to flight.
In a conference of theologians convened by the Emperor Sigismund, transformation into were-wolves was pronounced a crime, and any assertion to the contrary was accounted heresy.
In the same century, domestic goblins or familiars were generally accredited. In the twelfth century, a goblin domesticated in a small town of Saxony, was known by the name of Cap-a-Point, and a great favourite with the inhabitants; for whom he cleared their wood, lit their fires, and turned their spits. He was, however, of a vindictive temper; and a turnspit, in one of the kitchens he frequented, having ill-used him, he strangled him in the night, cut him in pieces, and served him to his master in a ragout. The goblin, who saved himself by flight, was anathematized by the clergy as an evil spirit; being, in all probability, some half idiotic deaf and dumb urchin, like Peter the Wild Boy.
In the thirteenth century, a house in the Rue d’Enfer in Paris, subsequently a monastery, wasinfested by goblins, and in the year 1262, the King granted the reverend fathers an exemption from taxes, provided they were able to exorcise these familiar spirits by their prayers and invocations. Among the last on record were those seen by Monsieur Berbiginer de Terre Neuve, who lived in the Rue Guénégaud, and left copious Memoirs of his contentions with these imaginary beings!—
While witches, spirits, and salamanders, have disappeared from the surface of Europe, modern Asia appears to have sustained a far greater loss in the phœnix, which has ceased to rise from its ashes.
Many writers, both ancient and modern, have minutely described the appearance and habits of this fabulous bird; as though an object of natural history rather than of poetical fiction.
The phœnix may be regarded as an allegorical type, like most mythological fables. Among the great writers who appear to have believed in its actual existence was Tacitus. In the sixth book of his Annals, he affirms that the phœnix was seen in Egypt under the Consulate of Paulus Fabius, and Lucius Vitellius; and that its appearance gave rise to much discussion among the scientific men of Egypt and Greece. Tacitus adds that the periodical return of the phœnix is an incontestable truth. The scholiast, Solinus, relates the same facts; adding that the phœnix was taken during thelast year of the eighth century of the foundation of Rome, where it was exhibited to the public gaze. The event was recorded in the imperial archives.
The account given by Tacitus is far more doubtful than that of Solinus. The Emperor Claudius probably chose that the Romans should see a phœnix in a certain bird presented to their admiration; and many a modern sovereign might, by the same means, have created a phœnix.
The Fathers of the Church profess the same conviction as Tacitus and Solinus concerning the phœnix. A passage taken from an Epistle to the Corinthians by St. Clement, in speaking of the resurrection of mankind, has the following passage:
“There exists in Arabia, a bird, the only one of its kind, which is called the phœnix. After living one hundred years, on the eve of death it embalms itself; and having collected myrrh, incense, and aromatics, forms a funeral pyre for its own obsequies. When its flesh is decomposed, a worm is generated, which forms and perfects itself from the remains into a new phœnix. Having acquired strength to take wing, it carries off the tomb containing the mortal remains of its parent, and carries it from Arabia to the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt. Having traversed the air, visible to all eyes, it places its burthen on the altar of the Sun, and flies away again. The priests, by consulting their chronicles, havediscovered that this phenomenon is repeated every five hundred years.”
The description of the phœnix by Solinus is as follows:—“This bird is of the size of an eagle; its head embellished with a cone of feathers; its neck surrounded with heron-like plumes and dazzling as gold. The remainder of the body is of a beautiful violet, excepting the tail, which is a mingled rose and blue.”
Plutarch speaks of the phœnix with as much reverence as if it were an illustrious man. He states the brain to be an article of delicacy for the table, though he does not mention having tasted it! The fable of the phœnix, which is both graceful and ingenious, and has been rendered available by the poets of the last two thousand years, was probably invented by the priests of Egypt, the first embalmers of the dead. Another bird of Arabia—the roc, or condor, has given rise to a thousand Oriental fables. The Bird of Paradise, which was for centuries supposed to be the inhabitant of a higher sphere, so rarely was it seen alive, has now been tamed in an European aviary at Canton. Let us hope that some future menagerie may obtain a specimen of the phœnix.
PROFESSIONS ESTEEMED INFAMOUS.
In the reign of Louis XVIII., an oration was made in the French Chamber of Deputies, complaining of the vileness of certain parties employed by the police. The Duc Decazes, then at the head of the administration, replied: “Point out to me honest men who would undertake the same functions, and I promise to employ them.”
The infamy attached to spies and common informers is a wholesome prejudice. In England, the nature of our constitution and political institutions secures us from the intrusion of such vermin; who were extensively employed in France by the police of the elder Bourbons and of Napoleon. In Austria, and, above all, in Russia, no society is secure against them; and half the Russian travellers dispersed through Europe, even those bearing illustrious names, are neither more nor less than spies. The fashionablewatering places of the continent are infested by these individuals, most of whom have solicited from the Emperor the honourable appointment of travelling spy.
A vocation which must always convey infamy, and which is more essential to the well-being of society, is that of public executioner; and notwithstanding the disgust with which it is contemplated, whenever there occurs a vacancy in the office, in any country, a host of solicitors present themselves.
In Russia, which many pretend to consider a barbarous country, there is no salaried executioner. So infamous is the office considered, that in the event of a capital execution, a criminal convicted of a less heinous crime undertakes it, and thereby gains his pardon. Formerly, in state executions, the executioner used to be masked, to secure him from the odium attending his calling.
In some countries, the stage, or rather the profession of an actor is an object of violent prejudice. In France actors were denied for several centuries the rites of Christian burial, and even in the present century have been made objects of excommunication. England was the first to show a more liberal example, by the interment of Garrick in Westminster Abbey, and the intermarriage of the nobility with actresses;—a violent and pernicious extreme. During theConsulate in France, even on occasion of state dinners, Mademoiselle Coutat was admitted as the associate of Madame Bonaparte, as Talma of the First Consul. But on the restoration of the Bourbons, public opinion resumed in this particular nearly all its former inveteracy.
In England, the leading members of the profession, such as the Kembles, Young, Macready, Charles Kean, whose conduct in private life is as exemplary as their talents on the stage are distinguished, are received in society with the same respect conceded to any other order of literary persons. In France, this honourable position would be untenable; so deeply rooted are the prejudices of the vulgar. A clever French writer, who was in his youth an actor, relates the following anecdote:—
“Being once engaged in a company of players in a town in the south of France, he devoted the leisure of his theatrical duties to literary pursuits. A shoe-maker, whom he employed, an ardent admirer of the dramatic art, occasionally attempted to engage him in conversation; and the actor indulged the man’s passion for theatricals by presenting him with tickets of free admission. At the end of some month’s acquaintance, the shoemaker entered the actor’s lodgings one morning in the greatest glee, and informed him that it was his daughter’s wedding-day, and that he was come to invite him to theceremony. The actor, hesitating to accept the invitation, made a variety of polite excuses to his humble friend, who seized him cordially by the hand. “I see how it is,” said he. “You think my friends will not like to sit at table with an actor! But never mind. I am not proud, and for my sake they will overlook it!”
The gentlemen of the household of Louis XIV. refused to make the King’s bed with Molière, who had purchased a small place in the royal household, because he had been an actor. This was a just punishment to one who should have abstained from a position so infinitely below his rank in the great scale of human nature. Of the individuals thus fastidious, the names are unknown to posterity. That of Molière is immortal.
John Kemble was the occasional guest of the Prince Regent, and Mrs. Siddons enjoyed the highest distinctions from the highest personages in the realm. Still, even in England, among the lower classes, a prejudice prevails against comedians; but arising chiefly from the irregularities with which many belonging to the inferior class of the profession are unfortunately chargeable.
SUPERNATURAL HUMAN BEINGS.
There is no species of supernatural power to which some impostor or other has not pretended; some to incombustibility; some to insubmergeability; some to invulnerability; some to invisibility. Men have been found who pretend to fly,—to walk upon the surface of the waters,—to penetrate, by the acuteness of their optics, into the depths of the earth. But though an announcement of a balloon, a diving-bell, an electrical telegraph, or even a railroad, would have appeared as much a matter of empty vaunt to the ancients as these pretensions to ourselves, no extent of modern discovery has enabled or is likely to enable mankind so thoroughly to defy the existing laws of nature. The conformation of the human form expressly points out the purposes and capabilities for which it was created.
We read in old books, in proverbial reference to human speed, that such a one ‘runs like a manwithout a spleen;’ and it has been asserted that the bearers of the posts of the ancients, had their spleen extracted in order to facilitate despatch.
Even with our present chirurgical proficiency, such an operation would be somewhat hazardous. But certain it is that dogs from which the spleen has been removed in the way of experiment, are observed to grow unnaturally fat, which would be no great advantage to a pedestrian. If the operation in question were both harmless and effectual, it is deserving the consideration of the King of Naples; who is accompanied by running footmen from his palace in that city to his country palace of Caserta at some leagues’ distance; the unfortunate men being compelled to keep up on foot with the hard trotting of the horses. Not a year passes, but one of these victims of royal state drops dead from the exertion.
Running footmen constituted a very imposing portion of royal and noble equipage in former times, when preceding the stately carriages of prelates, drawn by mules, or the lumbering coaches and six of the days of the Stuarts; when part of their business was to forewarn the coachmen of holes in the pavement, or water-courses in the imperfect roads. But the office of running footman in the days of macadamization, is a work of supererogation. The act of barbarity of removing the spleen from such menwould not be much more cruel, however, than killing them by so terrible an excess of exertion.
Nothing could be more remarkable than the feats of activity performed in France by thecoureurs, or running-footmen of the nobility prior to the Revolution, and without any dangerous consequences. They were generally Basques, or natives of the frontier country of Gascony, proverbially light and active.
In the Landes, adjoining their district, another species of activity prevails—the walking or running on stilts, necessitated by the sandy nature of the soil. A large company of the inhabitants of that curious desart, proceeding to market, resembles the course of a troop of ostriches, or emus, over the Pampas.
The first aspect of these strangely-mounted men, probably gave rise to some of the fictions of our early fairy-tales, such as the seven-leagued boots of the ogre; just as the Laplanders and Patagonians originated races of beings which exaggeration rendered fabulous.
The marvels related by the traveller, Mandeville, and the more recent wonders described by Mungo Park, drew down upon their narrators a charge of mendacity, for which we have been forced to make atonement to their memory. How curious will be the first book of travels in England, written by a New Zealander!—The author would be sacrificedby his countrymen, on his return, as a wanton impostor!
It is related in French jest-books, that during the period of the religious troubles of France, when decapitation was so common, a Gascon executioner, boasting of his skill, was heard to protest that his victims were so artistically despatched as to remain unconscious of their execution. He was forced to say to them, ‘have the goodness to shake your head!’—when it rolled to the ground. In emulation of this foolish joke, people used to assert during the Reign of Terror, that they were forced to shake their heads every morning to be certain that, amid the general massacre, they had escaped the guillotine. A century hence, what with the acceleration of motion in every department—the application of caoutchouc and bitumen to all sorts of purposes—and the general diffusion of chemical science, we shall scarcely know whether we are on terra-firma, or in the air; and the reflective powers of the human race may chance to become strangely confused by such universal motation.
We may at least anticipate from the same source, the obliteration of vulgar errors, and the dissolution of popular prejudices. Our successors will have no time to cherish such chimeras as omens, presages, or presentiments: no leisure for listening to old wives’ tales, or traditions of ghosts and devils.
For all classes, education effects the miracle ofmaking the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk; and in our own, its operations commence at too early an age to leave our children at the mercy of ignorant nurses—the fountain-head of all popular superstition.
A love of the marvellous is, however, so strongly implanted in certain natures, and our capacity is after all so finite, that prejudices must ever, to a certain extent, prevail. Hypochondriacs, invalids, and pregnant women, will always be susceptible of the terrors of superstition; and so long as children are born with the marks and deformities to which all animated nature is liable, so long as the winter wind howls, ‘the owls shriek, and the crickets cry,’ nervous persons will not be wanting to listen to the foolish interpretations of any empty-headed gossip at hand.
To remedy the mischief, it becomes a peremptory duty to render the rising generation ‘wise virgins’ in their youth, in order that they may not become foolish old women in their age, to perpetuate the evils ofPOPULAR PREJUDICESandNATIONAL SUPERSTITIONS.
END.
LONDON:Printed by Schulze & Co., 13, Poland Street.
Footnotes:
[1]The reader will be struck by the affinity between this Legend, and the Ettrick Shepherd’s beautiful tale of “Kilmeny,” taken from a Highland tradition.
[2]The scene of Dousterswivel in the house of the Antiquary, may, perhaps, owe its origin to the heroes of the Castle of Brummersdorf.