Chapter 5

"Et quæ frugifero seritur vicina PriapoExcitet ut veneri tardos eruca maritos."149

"Th' eruca, Priapus, near thee we sowTo rouse to duty husbands who are slow."

Virgil attributes to it the same quality, designing it as—

"... Et venerem revocans eruca morantem."150"Th' eruca, plant which gives to jaded appetite the spur."

Lobel151gives an amusing account of the effects of this plant upon certain monks in the garden of whose monastery it was sown, an infusion of it being daily doled out to them under the impression that its cheering and exhilarating qualities would rouse them from the state of inactivity and sluggishness so common to the inmates of such establishments. But, alas! the continual use of it produced an effect far more powerful than had been contemplated by the worthy itinerant monk who had recommended it, for the poor cenobites were so stimulated by its aphrodisiacal virtues that, transgressing alike their monastic wall and vows, they sought relief for their amorous desires in the fond embraces of the women residing in the neighbourhood.

Salt, mala Bacchica152Cubebs, Surag,153and radix Chinæ (bark), were also regarded by ancient physicians as powerfulaphrodisiacs. Gomez154asserts of the first of these substances, that women who much indulge in it are thereby rendered more salacious, and that, for this reason, Venus is said to have arisen from the sea; whence the epigram:

"Unde tot in Veneta scortorum millia cur sunt?In promptu causa est. Venus orta mari."

"In Venice why so many punks abound?The reason sure is easy to be found:Because, as learned sages all agree,Fair Venus' birth-place was thesalt, salt sea."

To the last of the above-mentioned plants, Baptista Porta ascribes the most wonderful powers, his words being: Planta quæ non solum edentibus, sed et genitale languentibus tantum valet, ut coire summe desiderant, quoties fere velint, possint; aliosduodeciesprofecisse, alios adsexaginta vicespervenisse, refert.155

Certain condiments are also aphrodisiacal, acting as they undoubtedly do, as powerful stimulants. Thus Tourtelle and Peyrible assure us that pepper is a provocative to venereal pleasures, while Gesner and Chappel cured an atony of the virile member of three or four years' duration, by repeated immersions of that organ in a strong infusion of mustard seed.

The principal ingredient of theBangso much used by the Indians, as well as of theMaslacof the Turks is a species of the hemp plant. The Indians, says Acosta,156masticate theseeds and leaves of several species of that plant, in order to increase their vigour in the venereal congress, and very frequently combine with it, ambergris, musk, and sugar, preparing it in the form of an electuary. It has been remarked, moreover, that even in our own climate, the caged birds that are fed with hemp seed are the most amorously inclined.

According to Browne157whole fields are in Africa sown withhashish, thebangof the East Indies, for the purpose of being used as a stimulant to amorous dalliance. It is used in a variety of forms, but in none, it is supposed, more effectually than what in Arabic, is called Maijûn, a kind of electuary, in which both men and women indulge to excess.

It is said that the Chinese, domesticated at Batavia, avail themselves of a certain electuary for the purpose of stimulating their appetite for sexual intercourse. This preparation, called by them Affion, is chiefly composed of opium, and it is asserted that its effect is so violent that a brutal passion supervenes and continues throughout the night, the female being obliged to flee from the too energetic embraces of her lover.158

Narcotics, in general, and especially, opium, have been considered as direct aphrodisiacs, an opinion which, if well founded, would enable us to account more easily far those agreeable sensations by which the use of these substances is followed.

But it is very probable that narcotics act upon the genital organs in no other way than they do upon the other ones, that is to say, they certainly do simulate them, but only proportionately to the increase of force in the circulation of the blood and to the power or tone of the muscular fibre. It is also veryprobable that the voluptuous impressions superinduced by them depend upon the circumstances under which those persons are, who habitually indulge in them, and that they are connected with other impressions or with particular ideas which awaken them. If, for instance, in a Sultan reclining upon his sofa, the intoxication of opium is accompanied by images of the most ravishing delight, and if it occasions in him that sweet and lively emotion which the anticipation of those delights awakens throughout the whole nervous system, the same inebriation is associated in the mind of a Janizary or a Spahi with ideas of blood and carnage, with paroxysms, the brutal fury of which has certainly, nothing in common with the tender emotions of love. It is in vain to allege in proof of the aphrodisiacal qualities of opium the state of erection in which the genital members of Turks are found when lying dead on a field of battle,159for this state depends upon, or is caused by, the violent spasm or universal convulsive movements with which the body is seized in the moment of death: the same phenomenon frequently appears in persons who suffer hanging. In warm countries, it is the concomitant of death from convulsive diseases, and in our own climate, it has been observed in persons who have died from apoplectic attacks.

The power which certain odours possess of exciting venereal desires admits not the slightest doubt, at least as far as the inferior animals are concerned. Nearly all the mammifera exhale or emit, in the rutting season, peculiar emanations serving to announce from afar to the male the presence of the female and to excite in him the sexual desire. Facts have been observedwith respect to insects even, which cannot be otherwise accounted for than by odorous effluvia. If, for instance, the female of the bombyx butterfly, be placed in a box accurately closed, it will not be long before several males will be seen flying around the prison, and which could not possibly have known, by means of their visual organs, the presence of their captive Dulcinea. Now the question is, does anything analogous take place in our own species? Many authors assert that there does, and among them Virey, who, speaking of such exhalations, says: "L'extrême propreté des hommes et des femmes, l'habitude de se baigner et de changer souvent de lingefont disparaïtreles odeurs génitales.60... On doit aussi remarquer que la haire des Cénobites, la robe des Capucins, le froc des moines, les vêtements rudes et mal-propres de diverses corporations religieuses exposent ceux qui les portent à de fortes tentations, à cause de la qualité stimulante et de la sueur fétide dont étaient bientôt empreintes toutes ces sortes d'habillements."161"Odours," observes Cabanis162"act powerfully upon the nervous system, they prepare it for all the pleasurable sensations; they communicate to it that slight disturbance or commotion which appears as if inseperable from emotions of delight, all which may be accounted for by their exercising aspecial action upon those organs whence originate the most rapturous pleasure of which our nature is susceptible. In infancy its influence is almost nothing, in old age it is weak, its true epoch being that of youth, that of love."

It is certain that among most nations, and from the remotest antiquity, voluptuous women strengthened their amorous propensities by the use of various perfumes, but particularly of musk, to which has been attributed the power of exciting nocturnal emissions. The great Henry IV., of France, no novice in love affairs, was opposed to the use of odours, maintaining that the parts of generation should be allowed to retain their natural scent, which, in his opinion, was more effectual than all the perfumes ever manufactured by art.

Another aphrodisiacal remedy, which for a long time enjoyed a great reputation was the penis of the stag, which was supposed to possess the virtue of furnishing a man with an abundance of seminal fluid. Perhaps the reason why the ancients attributed this property to the genital member of that animal was from the supposition that it was the receptacle of the bile; that the abundance and acrid quality of this fluid caused lasciviousness, and that the stag being transported by an erotic furor during the rutting season, he was the most salacious of animals, and consequently that the genital organ of this quadruped would, when applied to man's generative apparatus, impart thereto considerable heat and irritation. A somewhat similar opinion respecting the horse appears to have obtained among the Tartars, if we may judge from the following account given by Foucher d'Obsonville:163"Les palefreniers aménent un cheval de sept àhuit ans, mais nerveux, bien nourri et en bon état. On lui présente une jument comme pour la saillir, et cependant on le retient de façon à bien irriter ses idées. Enfin, dans le moment où il semble qu'il va lui être libre de s'élancer dessus, l'on fait adroitment passer la verge dans un cordon dont le nœud coulant est rapproché au ventre, ensuite, saisissant à l'instant où l'animal parait dans sa plus forte érection, deux hommes qui tiennent les extrémités du cordon le tirent avec force et, sur le champ, le membre est séparé du corps au dessus le nœud coulant. Par ce moyen, les esprits sont retenus et fixés dane cette partie laquelle rests gonflée; aussitôt on la lave et la fait cuire avec divers aromatiques et épiceries aphrodisiaques."

The means of procuring the vigour necessary for sexual delights has also been sought for in certain preparations celebrated by the alchymists. Struck by the splendour of gold, its incorruptibility, and other rare qualities, some physicians imagined that this metal might introduce into the animal economy an inexhaustible source of strength and vitality; while empirics, abusing the credulity of the wealthy and the voluptuous made them pay exorbitantly for aphrodisiacal preparations in which they assured their dupes that gold, under different forms, was an ingredient. Among innumerable other instances, is that of a French lady who, to procure herself an heir, strove to reanimate an exhausted constitution by taking daily in soup what she was made to believe was potable gold, to the value of 50 francs, a fraud to expose which it suffices to say that the largest dose of perchloride of gold that can be safely administered is 1/6th of a grain. The tincture of gold known by the name ofMademoiselle Grimaldi's potable goldenjoyed a wonderful reputation towards the close of the 18th century as an efficacious restorative and stimulant; and numerous instances of its all butmiraculous powers were confidently adduced. Dr. Samuel Johnson, indeed, in a note upon a well-known passage in Shakespeare,164denies the possibility of making gold potable: "There has long," he observes, "prevailed an opinion that a solution of gold has great medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body impregnated with it. Some have pretended to make goldpotableamong other frauds practised upon credulity." So far back, however, as the 17th century the Abbé Guence shewed that it was feasible, and even described the process minutely; and it is now known to every chemist that gold is susceptible of entering into immediate combination with chlorine by the agency of heat, that it may even be dissolved in water charged with chlorine, and that various methods exist of obtaining chlorate of gold, a combination which is often successfully employed in the treatment of syphilitic cases. Ether, naptha, and essential oils take gold from its solvent, and form liquors which have been calledpotablegold.

Even the Christian Church itself possessed, in its early times, aphrodisiacs peculiarly its own. "On trouve," says Voltaire,165"dans la lettre à Maitre Acacius Lampirius (Literæ virorum obscurorum) une raillerie assez forte sur la conjuration qu'on employait pair se faire aimer des filles. Le secret consistoit à prendre un cheveu be la fille, on le plaçoit d'abord dans son haut-de-chausses; on faisoit une confession générale et on fesoit dire trois messes, pendant les quelles on mettoit lecheveu autour de son col; on allumait un cièrge béni au dernier Evangile en on prononcait cette formule. 'O Vierge! je te conjure par la vertu du Dieu tout-puissant, par des neuf chœurs des anges, par la vertu gosdrienne, amène moi icelle fille, en chair et en os, afin queje la sabouleà mon plaisir.'"

Bourchard, Bishop of Worms, has transmitted to us166an account of certain aphrodisiacal charms practised by women of his time, the disgusting obscenity of which is such that we cannot venture upon translating the passage:

"Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt menstruum suum sanguinem et immiscunt cibo vel potui et dant viris suis ad manducandum vel ad bibendum ut plus diligantur ab eis. Si fecisti, quinque annos per legitimas ferias pœniteas.

"Gustasti de semine viri tui ut propter tua diabolica facta plus in amorem exardisceret? Si fecisti, septem annos per legitimas ferias pœnitere debeas.

"Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem et discoopertis natibus, jubent ut supra nudas nates conficirtur panis, ut eo decocto tradunt maritis suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus exardescant in amorem suum. Si fecisti, duos annos per legitimas ferias pœniteas.

"Fecisti quad quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt piscem vivum et mittunt eum in puerperium suum, et tamdiu ibi tenent, donec mortuus fuerit, et decocto pisce vel assato, maritis suis ad comedendum tradunt. Ideo faciunt ut plus in amorem suum exardescant. Si fecisti, duos annos per legitimas ferias pœniteas."

Remedies taken internally are not the only ones which stimulate man to sexual intercourse. External applications materially contribute to that end, and liniments have been composedwherewith to anoint the parts of generation. These washes are made of honey, liquid storax, oil and fresh butter, or the fat of the wild goose, together with a small quantity of spurge, pyrethrum, ginger or pepper to insure the remedy's penetrating: a few grains of ambergris, musk, or cinnamon are to be added by way of perfume.

Remedies for the same purpose may also be applied to men's testicles especially; as according to the opinion of Galen, those parts are the second source of heat, which they communicate to the whole of the body; for, besides the power of engendering, they also elaborate a spirituous humour or fluid which renders man robust, hardy, and courageous. The best application of this kind is that composed of cinnamon powder, gilliflower, ginger and rose water, together with theriac, the crumb of bread, and red wine.

In addition to the means already mentioned for restoring vigour to the generative organs, two others may be reckoned which have been successfully resorted to for bracing them in such persons whose reproductive faculties lie dormant rather than extinct: these two methods are known asflagellationandurtication.167

Flagellation was recommended by several of the ancient physicians as an effectual remedy in many disorders, and this upon the physiological axiom of Hippocrates—ubi stimulus, ibi affluxus. Seneca considers it as able to remove the quartan ague. Jerome Mercurialis speaks of it as employed by many physicians in order to impart embonpoint to thin, meagre persons; and Galen informs us that slave merchants used it as a means of clearing the complexion of their slaves and plumpingthem up. Alædeus of Padua, recommends flagellation with green nettles, that is, urtication, to be performed on the limbs of young children for the purpose of hastening the eruption of the small pox. Thomas Campanella168attributes to flagellation the virtue of curing intestinal obstructions, and adduces in proof to his assertion, the case of the Prince of Venosa, one of the best musicians of his time, who could not go to stool, without being previously flogged by a valet kept expressly for that purpose.

Even at a later period the same opinion obtained as to the efficacy of flagellation, it being supposed by many physicians to reanimate the torpid circulation of the capillary and cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular energy, to promote absorption, and to favour the necessary secretions of our nature.169As an erotic stimulant, more particularly it may be observed that, considering the many intimate and sympathetic relations existing between the nervous branches of the extremity of the spinal marrow, it is impossible to doubt that flagellation exercised upon the buttocks and the adjacent parts, has a powerful effect upon the organs of generation.

Meibomius,170the great advocate for the use of this remedy,remarks, that stripes inflicted upon the back and loins are of great utility in exciting the venereal appetite, because they create warmth in those parts whose office it is to elaborate the semen and to convey it to the generative organs. He, therefore, considered it by no means wonderful that the miserable victims of debauchery and lasciviousness, as well as those whose powers have been exhausted by age or excess, should have recourse to flagellation as a remedy. He observes that its effect is very likely to be that of renewing warmth in the now frigid parts, and of furnishing heat to the semen, an effect in producing which the pain itself materially contributes by the blood and heat which is thereby drawn down to the part until they are communicated to the reproductive organs, the erotic passion being thus raised, even in spite of nature herself, beyond her powers. A similar view is taken by a modern writer, whose opinion is "that the effect of flagellation may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy which exists between the nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial excitement appears in some degree natural; it is observed in several animals, especially in the feline race. Even snails plunge into each other a bony, prickly spur, that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of the wasp, frequently breaks off, and is left in the wound."171

After the appearance of the Abbé Boileau'sHistoire de la Flagellation, the Jesuits condemned several propositions found either in that work or in others approved by him. The following is one:

"Necesse est cum musculi lumbares virgis aut flagellis diverberantur, spiritus vitales revelli, adeoque salaces motus obvicinam partium genitalium et testium excitari, qui venereis ac illecebris cerebrum mentemque fascinant ac virtutem castitatis ad extremas augustias redigunt."

From out of almost innumerable instances of the efficacy of flagellation as an aphrodisiac, the following are selected.

Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, and who, according to Pliny, died the most delightful of deaths by expiring in the embraces of the fondest object of his affections,172was solely indebted for the delicious transports he enjoyed with her to the scourge with which her severe father chastised her for the faults that originated in too warm a temperament, a punishment which, instead of counteracting, furthered the wishes of the voluptuous Roman.

Jean Pic de Mirandole relates173the case of a person known to him who, being a great libertine, could not consummate the act of love without being flagellated until the blood came, and that, therefore, providing himself for the occasion with a whip steeped in vinegar, he presented it to hisinamorata, begging her not to spare him, for "plus on le fouettait, plus il y trouvait des délices, la douleur et la volupté marchant, dans cet homme, d'un pas egal."

Meibomius mentions the case of a citizen of Lubeck who, being accused and convicted of adultery, was sentenced to be banished. A woman of pleasure with whom this man had

been for a long time intimate, appeared before the judges as a witness on his behalf. This woman swore that the man was never able to consummate the act of love with her unless he had been previously flogged,—an operation which it was also necessary to repeat before each successive indulgence.

That this was a means employed by Abelard in his commerce with Heloisa, appears from the following passages in two of his letters to her;

"Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira quæ omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent."174

"Stripes which, whenever inflicted by love, not by fury but affection, transcended, in sweetness, every unguent."

"Nosti quantis turpitudinibus immoderata mea libido corpora nostra addixerat et nulla honestatis vel Dei reverentia in ipsis diebus Dominicæ passionis vel quantarumque solemnitatem ut hujus luti volutabro me revocavit. Sed et te nolentem aut dissuadentem quæ natura infirmior eras, ut sæpius minis ac flagellis ad consensum trahebam.175"

"Thou knowest to what shameful excesses my unbridled lust had delivered up our bodies, so that no sense of decency, no reverence for God, could, even in the season of our Lord's passion, or during any other holy festival, drag me forth from out that cesspool of filthy mire; but that even with threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, the weaker vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances."

The renowned Tamerlane, the mighty conqueror of Asia,required a like stimulus,176the more so perhaps from the circumstance of his being a monorchis.177

The Abbé Boileau, in his well known and entertaining "Histoire des Flagellants," partly attributes the gross licentiousness of that period to the strange practice then in vogue of doing penance by being scourged in public; and his brother the celebrated poet and critic, defending the Abbé against the animadversions of the Jesuits, remarks very forcibly:

"Non, le livre des FlagellansN'a jamais condamné, lisez le bien, mes pères,Ces rigidités salutairesQui, pour ravir le Ciel, saintement violens,Exercent sur leurs corps, tant de Chrétiens austères;Il blâme seulement ces abus odieuxD'étaler et d'offrir aux yeuxCe que leur doit toujours cacher la bienveillance,Et combat vivement la fausse piété,Qui sous couleur d'eteindre en nous la voluptéPar l'austérité méme, et par la pénitenceSait allumer le feu de la lubricité.178"

Flagellation, indeed, as well as the custom of wearing the hair-shirt, so common with the monks, and even with religious lay catholics, was, by the stimulus it imparted to the skin, and hence to the internal viscera, much more likely to increase theenergy of the physiological functions, andthus excite the commission of the very acts they are intended to suppress.

The Abbé Chuppe d'Auteroche, member of the Académie des Sciences, and who died in California a few days after the observation of the Transit of Venus in 1760, remarks that the stripes given to persons frequenting the vapour baths in Russia impart activity to the fluids and elasticity to the organs and gives additional stimulus to the venereal appetite.179

M. Serrurier records the following curious case. "One of my schoolfellows, who found an indescribable pleasure in being flogged, purposely and wilfully neglected his duty in order to draw upon himself the correction, which never failed to produce an emission of semen. As may easily be imagined he soon began the practice of masturbation, in which he indulged to so frightful an extent that rapid consumption ensued, and he died, a most horrible and disgusting object, affording a melancholy example of that fatal vice."180

The case of Jean Jacques Rousseau is well known. When a child he was by no means displeased with the corrections administered to him by a lady considerably his elder, he even frequently sought for a whipping at her hands, especially after he perceived that the flagellation developed in him the manifest token of virility. But he must be allowed to give his own account of it. "Assez long temps," says he, "Madame Lambercier s'entint à la menace, et cette menace d'un châtiment tout nouveau pour moi me semblait très effrayante, mais après l'exécution, je la trouvai moins terrible à l'épreuve que l'attentene l'avait été, et ce qu'il y a de plus bizarre est qui ce châtiment m'affectionna davantage d'elle qui me l'avoit imposé. Il fallait même toute la vérité de cette affection et toute ma douceur naturelle pour m'empêcher de chercher le retour du même traitement en le méritant, car j'avais trouvé dans la douleur, dans la honte même, un mélange de sensualité qui m'avait laissé plus de désir que de crainte de l'éprouver derechef, par la même main. Il est vrai que comme il se mêlait, sans doute, à cela quelque instinct précoce du sexe, le même châtiment reçu de son frère, ne m'eut point du tout, parut plaisant."180

As flagellation is practised by striking the skin with a rod formed of twigs, until the heat and redness become more intense, so if the twigs be replaced by fresh nettles, the operation will become,—urtication.

The employment of urtication is of great antiquity, for Celsus as well as Aretæus mentions the use of it, it being in those times, a popular remedy. That the Romans had frequent recourse to it in order to arouse the sexual appetite, is proved by the following passage from Petronius Arbiter, which for obvious reasons, we shall content ourselves with giving in the original only. "Oenothea semiebria ad me respiciens;—Perficienda sunt, inquit, mysteriaut recipas nervos.

"Simulque profert scorteum fascinum quod, ut olio et minuto pipere, atqueurticætrito circumdedit semine, paulatim cœpit inserere ano meo. Hoc crudelissima anus spargit subinde femina mea Nasturcii182succum cum abrotono miscet, perfusis que inguinibus meis, viridis urticæ fascem comprehendit omnes que infra umbilicum cœpit lenta manu cædere."183

Menghus Faventinus assures us that nettles have "une propriété merveilleuse pour allonger, tendre, grossir et ériger le membre viril, qui, par une parsimonie de la nature, feroit craindre la stérilité."184

Urtication appears to have been well known in France during the time of Rabelais, who alluding to this mode of procuring the vigour necessary for the amorous conflict, says, "se frotter le cul au panicaut (a species of thistle) vrai moyen d'avoir au cul passion."

Une femme en mélancholiePour faute d'occupation,Frottez moi le cul d'ortieElle aura au cul passion.185

The irritation caused by nettles produces effects analogous to those which are observed in persons afflicted with the itch, the ring-worm and leprosy. The lubricity of those unfortunates is sometimes uncontrolable; they suffer violent priapisms, which are followed by ejaculation, whenever a severe itching forces them to scratch themselves with a kind of furor or madness.

"In a medical point of view," observes Dr. Milligen, "urtication, or stinging with nettles, is a practice not sufficiently appreciated. In many instances, especially in cases of paralysis it is more efficacious than blistering or stimulating frictions. Its effects, though perhaps less permanent, are general and diffused over the limb. This process has been found effectual in restoringheat to the lower extremities, and a case of obstinate lethargy was cured by Corvisart by a repeated urtication of the whole body. During the action of the stimulus, the patient,who was a young man, would open his eyes and laugh, but then sink again into a profound sleep. In three weeks, however, his perfect cure was effected.186

In 1783, Dr. James Graham, an humble imitator of the celebrated Cagliostro, commenced giving his sanatary lectures, which he illustrated by the dazzling presence of his Goddess of Health, a character which, for a short time, was sustained by Emma Harte, afterwards the celebrated Lady Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton, English Ambassador at the Court of Naples, and thechère amieof the immortal Nelson.

After describing various aphrodisiacal remedies, the lecturer thus proceeds: "But, gentlemen, if all the above means and methods, which I have thus faithfully, ingenuously, and with the frankest and most unreserved liberality, recommended, fail, suffer me, with great cordiality, and assurance of success, to recommend my celestial, or medico, magnetico, musico, electrical bed, which I have, with so much study and at so vast an expense, constructed, not alone to insure the removal of barrenness, when conception is at all in the nature of things possible, but likewise to improve, exalt, and invigorate the bodily, and through them, the mental faculties of the human species. This bed, whose seeminglymagicalinfluences are now celebrated from pole to pole and from the rising to the setting sun! is indeed anuniquein science! and unquestionably the first and the only one that ever was mentioned, erected, or even, perhaps, thought of, in the world; and I will now conclude the lecture with giving you a slight descriptive sketch of the structure of the bed, and the nature of those influences with which it glows—which it breathes forth, and with which it animates,regenerates, and transports those happy, happy persons who have the honour and the paradisiacal blessedness of reposing on it.

"The Grand Celestial State Bed! then, gentlemen, which is twelve feet long by nine wide, is supported by forty pillars of brilliant glass, of great strength and of the most exquisite workmanship, in regard to shape, cutting, and engravings; sweetly delicate and richly variegated colours, and the most brilliant polish! They are, moreover, invisibly incrusted with a certain transparent varnish in order to render the insulation still more complete; and that otherwise, properly assisted, we may have, in even the most unfavourable weather, abundance of the electrical fire.

"The sublime, the magnificent, and, I may say, the super-celestial dome of the bed, which contains the odoriferous, balmy, and ethereal spices, odours, and essences, and which is the grand magazine or reservoir of those vivifying and invigorating influences which are exhaled and dispersed by the breathing of the music, and by the attenuating, repelling, and accelerating force of the electrical fire,—is very curiously inlaid or wholly covered on the under side with brilliant plates of looking-glass, so disposed as to reflect the various attractive charms of the happy recumbent couple, in the most flattering, most agreeable and most enchanting style.

"On the top or summit of the dome, are placed, in the most loving attitudes, two exquisite figures, representing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, with a fine figure of Hymen behind, and over them, with his torch flaming with electrical fire in one hand and, with the other, supporting a celestial crown, sparkling, likewise, with the effulgent fire over a pair of real living turtle-doves, who, on a little bed of roses, coo and bill under the super-animating impulses of the genial fire! The other elegant groupsof figures which sport on the top of the dome—the Cupids, the Loves, and the Graces!—besides festoons of the freshest and most beautiful flowers, have each of them musical instruments in their hands, which by the exquisite and most expensive mechanism, are made to breathe forth sounds corresponding with the appearance of the several instruments,—flutes, guitars, violins, clarionets, trumpets, horns, oboes, kettle-drums, &c. On the posts or pillars, too, which support the grand dome are groups of figures, musical instruments, organ-pipes, &c., which, in sweet concert with the other instruments, at the commencement of the tender dalliance of the happy pair, breathe forth celestial sounds! lulling them in visions of elysian joys! opening new sources of pleasure, and "untwisting all the chains which tie the hidden soul of harmony!" At the head of the bed, in the full centre front, appears, sparkling with electrical fire, through a glory of burnished and effulgent gold, the great, first, ever-operating commandment,Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth!under this is a most elegant and sweet-toned organ, in the front of which is a fine landscape of moving figures on the earth, birds flying, swans, &c., gliding on the waters, a fine procession, too, is seen, village nymphs strewing flowers before priests, brides, bridegrooms, and their attendants, who, all entering into the temple of Hymen, disappear from the delightful eye. The painting and embellishment of this front are most masterly, and reflect the highest honour on the artists by whom they were executed; and the whole view is terminated with fountains, waterfalls, shepherds, shepherdesses, and other peasants, as pastoral sports and rural employment, and by a little church, the dial of which points out truly and distinctly the hour.

"In the celestial bed no feather bed is employed; sometimes mattresses filled with sweet new wheat or cut straw, with the grain in the ears, and mingled with balm, rose leaves, lavender flowers, and oriental spices, and, at other times, springy hair mattresses are used. Neither will you find upon the celestial bed linen sheets; our sheets are of the richest and softest silk or satin; of various colours suited to the complexion of the lady who is to repose on them. Pale green, for example, rose colour, sky blue, black, white, purple, azure, mazarin blue, &c., and they are sweetly perfumed in the oriental manner, with otto and odour of roses, jessamine, tuberose, rich gums, fragrant balsams, oriental spices, &c.,; in short, everything is done to assist the ethereal, magnetic, musical and electric influences, and to make the lady look as lovely as possible in the eyes of her husband and he, in hers. But to return, in order that I might have for the important purposes, the strongest and most springy hair, I procured, at a vast expense, the tails of English stallions, which when twisted, baked and then untwisted and properly prepared, is elastic to the highest degree.

"But the chief elastic principle of my celestial bed is produced by artificial loadstones. About fifteen hundred pounds' weight of artificial and compound magnets are so disposed and arranged as to be continually pouring forth in an ever-flowing circle inconceivable and irrestibly powerful tides of the magnetic effluxion, which is well known to have a very strong affinity with the electric fire.

"Such is a slight and inadequate sketch of the grand celestial bed, which, being thus completely insulated,—highly saturated with the most genial floods or electrical fire!—fully impregnated moreover, with the balmy vivifying effluvia of restorativebalsamic medicines and of soft, fragrant, oriental gums, balsams and quintescence, and pervaded at the same times with full springing tides of the invigorating influences of music and magnets both real and artificial, gives such elastic vigour to the nerves, on the one hand, of the male, and on the other, such retentive firmness to the female; and, moreover, all the faculties of the soul being so fully expanded, and so highly illuminated, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, but that strong, beautiful, brilliant, nay, double-distilled children, if I may use the expression, must infallibly be begotten."

A digression may, perhaps, be here pardonable, in order to give some notice of the latter and last days of the beautiful, highly accomplished and fascinating woman mentioned above.

She had been presented to Nelson by her husband, who had previously told her that he was about to introduce her to a littlethread-paperof a man, who could not boast of being very handsome, but who would become, some day, one of the greatest men that England ever produced. After the battle of the Nile he again visited Naples, and was now little better than a perfect wreck. At Calvi, in 1794, he had lost an eye. At Teneriffe his right arm was shattered and amputated close to the shoulder. At the battle of the Nile he was severely wounded in the head. Incessant anxiety and watchfulness for his country's honour and welfare had blanched his brow, and shattered the "little thread-paper of a man" at the outset, till, on his return in triumph to his mistress, he seemed to be on the verge of an early grave.

Yet she proved herself a true woman, if an erring one, in her reception of the man she loved, and unhesitatingly and unequivocally forsook her all, to attend upon and worship him.

Not far from Merton turnpike stood the house of Nelson and his mistress. It was left with all its liabilities to Lady Hamilton, but she was obliged to take a hasty departure, and, harassed by creditors, in sickness of heart and without funds, the unhappy woman escaped to Calais.

Now for the sad, sad finale. From the portal of a house, as cheerless and dreary as can be imagined, in the month of January, with a black silk petticoat stretched on a white curtain thrown over her coffin for a pall, and an half-day Irish dragoon to act as chaplain over the grave, which was in a timber-yard, were the remains of Nelson's much-adored friend removed to their final resting place, under the escort of asergent de ville.

She died without the common necessaries of life, and was buried at the expense of the town, notwithstanding Nelson's last words, "Blackwood, take care of my poor Lady Hamilton!"

"Whatever the errors of Lady Hamilton may have been," says Doran, "let us not forget that without her aid, as Nelson said, the battle of the Nile would never have been fought, and that in spite of her sacrifices and services, England left her to starve, because the government was too virtuous to acknowledge the benefits rendered to her country by a lady with too loose a zone."

The remarks of honest old Burton186upon Aphrodisiacs, though quaint, are so judicious and pertinent, that we cannot better conclude this part of our essay than by quoting them:—

"The last battering engines," says he, "are philters, amulets, charms, images, and such unlawful meanes: if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of bawds, panders, and theiradherents, they will fly for succour to the devil himself. I know there be those that denye the devil can do any such thing, and that there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes. It was given out, of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to dote on her, and by philters enforced his love, but when Olympia, his queen, saw the maid of an excellent beauty well brought up and qualified: these, quoth she, were the philters which enveagled King Philip, these the true charms as Henry to Rosamond."187

Back to Index Next