(M. G.)
CANTAGALLO,an inland town of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, about 100 m. by rail N.E. of the port of Rio de Janeiro, with which it is connected by the Cantagallo railway. Pop. (1890) of the municipality, 26,067, of whom less than one-fourth live in the town. Cantagallo is situated in the fertile Parahyba valley and is the commercial centre of a rich coffee-producing district. There are exhausted gold placer mines in its vicinity, but they were not rich enough to cause any considerable development in mining. Coffee production is the principal industry, but sugar-cane is grown to a limited extent, and some attention is given to the raising of cattle and swine. The district is an excellent fruit region.
CANTAL,a department of central France, formed from Haute-Auvergne, the southern portion of the old province of Auvergne. It is bounded N. by the department of Puy-de-Dôme, E. by Haute-Loire, S.E. by Lozère, S. by Aveyron and Lozère, and W. by Corrèze and Lot. Area 2231 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 228,600. Cantal is situated in the middle of the central plateau of France. It takes its name from the Monts du Cantal, a volcanic group occupying its central region, and continued towards the north and east by ranges of lower altitude. The Plomb du Cantal, the culminating summit of the department, attains a height of 6096 ft.; and its neighbours, the Puy Mary and the Puy Chavaroche, attain a height of 5863 and 5722 ft. respectively. Immediately to the east of this central mass lies the lofty but fertile plateau of Planèze, which merges into the Monts de la Margeride on the eastern border. The valley of the Truyère skirts the Planèze on the south and divides it from the Monts d’Aubrac, at the foot of which lies Chaudesaigues, noted for its thermal springs, the most important in the department. Northwards the Monts du Cantal are connected with the Monts Dore by the volcanic range of Cézallier and the arid plateaus of Artense. In the west of the department grassy plateaus and beautiful river valleys slope gently down from the central heights. Most of the streams of the department have their sources in this central ridge and fall by a short and rapid course into the rivers which traverse the extensive valleys on either side. The principal rivers are the Alagnon, a tributary of the Allier; the Celle and Truyère, tributaries of the Lot; and the Cère and Rue, tributaries of the Dordogne. The climate of the department varies considerably in the different localities. In the alluvial plain between Murat and St Flour, and in the south-west in the arrondissement of Aurillac, it is generally mild and dry; but in the northern and central portions the winters are long and severe and the hurricanes peculiarly violent. The cold and damp of the climate in these districts are great obstacles to the cultivation of wheat, but rye and buckwheat are grown in considerable quantities, and in natural pasture Cantal is extremely rich. Cattle are accordingly reared with profit, especially around Salers and in the Monts d’Aubrac, while butter and Roquefort cheese are made in large quantities. Large flocks of sheep pasture in the Monts d’Aubrac and elsewhere in the department; goats are also reared. The inhabitants are simple and primitive and accustomed to live on the scantiest fare. Many of them migrate for part of the year to Paris and the provinces, where they engage in the humblest occupations. The principal articles of food are rye, buckwheat and chestnuts. The internal resources of the department are considerable; but the difficulty of land-carriage prevents them being sufficiently developed. The hills and valleys abound with game and the streams with fish. Cantal produces a vast variety of aromatic and medicinal plants; and its mineral products include coal, antimony and lime. The department has no prominent manufactures. Live-stock, cheese, butter and coal are the principal exports; coal, wine, cereals, flour and earthenware are imported. The department is served by the railways of the Orléans and Southern companies, the construction of which at some points demanded considerable engineering skill, notably in the case of the viaduct of Garabit spanning the gorge of the Truyère. Cantal is divided into four arrondissements—Aurillac, Mauriac, Murat and St Flour—23 cantons and 267 communes. It belongs to the region of the XIII. army corps and to the académie (educational division) of Clermont-Ferrand. Its bishopric is at St Flour and depends on the archbishopric of Bourges. Its court of appeal is at Riom. The capital is Aurillac (q.v.), and St Flour (q.v.) is the other principal town.
CANTARINI, SIMONE(1612-1648), calledSimone da Pesaro, painter and etcher, was born at Oropezza near Pesaro in 1612. He was a disciple of Guido Reni and a fellow-student of Domenichino and Albano. The irritability of his temper and his vanity were extreme; and it is said that his death, which took place at Verona in 1648, was occasioned by chagrin at his failure in a portrait of the duke of Mantua. Others relate that he was poisoned by a Mantuan painter whom he had injured. His pictures, though masterly and spirited, are deficient in originality. Some of his works have been mistaken for examples of Guido Reni, to whom, indeed, he is by some considered superior in the extremities of the figures. Among his principal paintings are “St Anthony,” at Cagli; the “Magdalene,” at Pesaro; the “Transfiguration,” in the Brera Gallery, Milan; the “Portraitof Guido,” in the Bologna gallery; and “St Romuald,” in the Casa Paolucci. His most celebrated etching is “Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, honouring the arms of Cardinal Borghese.”
CANTATA(Italian for a song or story set to music), a vocal composition accompanied by instruments and generally containing more than one movement. In the 16th century, when all serious music was vocal, the term had no reason to exist, but with the rise of instrumental music in the 17th century cantatas began to exist under that name as soon as the instrumental art was definite enough to be embodied in sonatas. From the middle of the 17th till late in the 18th century a favourite form of Italian chamber music was the cantata for one or two solo voices, with accompaniment of harpsichord and perhaps a few other solo instruments. It consisted at first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Fine examples may be found in the church music of Carissimi; and the English vocal solos of Purcell (such asMad TomandMad Bess) show the utmost that can be made of this archaic form. With the rise of the Da Capo aria the cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. Handel’s numerous Italian duets and trios are examples on a rather large scale. His Latin motetSilete Venti, for soprano solo, shows the use of this form in church music.
The Italian solo cantata naturally tended, when on a large scale, to become indistinguishable from a scene in an opera. In the same way the church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small oratorio or portion of an oratorio. This is equally evident whether we examine the unparalleled church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200 are extant, or theChandos Anthemsof Handel. In Bach’s case many of the larger cantatas are actually called oratorios; and theChristmas Oratoriois a collection of six church cantatas actually intended for performance on six different days, though together forming as complete an artistic whole as any classical oratorio.
The essential point, however, in Bach’s church cantatas is that they formed part of a church service, and moreover of a service in which the organization of the music was far more coherent than is possible in the Anglican church. Many of Bach’s greatest cantatas begin with an elaborate chorus followed by a couple of arias and recitatives, and end with a plain chorale. This has often been commented upon as an example of Bach’s indifference to artistic climax in the work as a whole. But no one will maintain this who realizes the place which the church cantata occupied in the Lutheran church service. The text was carefully based upon the gospel or lessons for the day; unless the cantata was short the sermon probably took place after the first chorus or one of the arias, and the congregation joined in the final chorale. Thus the unity of the service was the unity of the music; and, in the cases where all the movements of the cantata were founded on one and the same chorale-tune, this unity has never been equalled, except by those 16th-century masses and motets which are founded upon the Gregorian tones of the festival for which they are written.
In modern times the term cantata is applied almost exclusively to choral, as distinguished from solo vocal music. There has, perhaps, been only one kind of cantata since Bach which can be recognized as an art form and not as a mere title for works otherwise impossible to classify. It is just possible to recognize as a distinct artistic type that kind of early 19th-century cantata in which the chorus is the vehicle for music more lyric and songlike than the oratorio style, though at the same time notexcludeingthe possibility of a brilliant climax in the shape of a light order of fugue. Beethoven’sGlorreiche Augenblickis a brilliant “pot-boiler” in this style; Weber’sJubel Cantatais a typical specimen, and Mendelssohn’sWalpurgisnachtis the classic. Mendelssohn’s “Symphony Cantata,” theLobgesang, is a hybrid work, partly in the oratorio style. It is preceded by three symphonic movements, a device avowedly suggested by Beethoven’s ninth symphony; but the analogy is not accurate, as Beethoven’s work is a symphony of which the fourth movement is a choral finale of essentially single design, whereas Mendelssohn’s “Symphony Cantata” is a cantata with three symphonic preludes. The full lyric possibilities of a string of choral songs were realized at last by Brahms in hisRinaldo, set to a text which Goethe wrote at the same time as he wrote that of theWalpurgisnacht. The point of Brahms’s work (his only experiment in thisgenre) has naturally been lost by critics who expected in so voluminous a composition the qualities of an elaborate choral music with which it has nothing whatever to do. Brahms has probably said the last word on this subject; and the remaining types of cantata (beginning with Beethoven’sMeeres-stille, and including most of Brahms’s and many notable English small choral works) are merely so many different ways of setting to choral music a poem which is just too long to be comprised in one movement.
(D. F. T.)
CANTEEN(through the Fr.cantine, from Ital.cantina, a cellar), a word chiefly used in a military sense for an official sutler’s shop, where provisions, &c., are sold to soldiers. The word was formerly applied also to portable equipments for carrying liquors and food, or for cooking in the field. Another sense of the word, which has survived to the present day, is that of a soldier’s water-bottle, or of a small wooden or metal can for carying a workman’s liquor, &c.
CANTEMIR,the name of a celebrated family of Tatar origin, which came from the Crimea in the 17th century and settled in Moldavia.
Constantine Cantemirbecame a prince of Moldavia, 1685-1693. He was a good and conscientious ruler, who protected the people from the rapacity of the tax-gatherers and introduced peace into his country. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Antioch, who ruled twice, 1696-1700 and 1705-1707.
His youngest brother,DemetriusorDemeter Cantemir(b. October 26, 1673), was made prince of Moldavia in 1710; he ruled only one year, 1710-1711, when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Turks and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty. Beaten by the Turks, Cantemir emigrated to Russia, where he and his family finally settled. He died at Kharkov in 1723. He was known as one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being well versed in Oriental scholarship. He was a voluminous and original writer of great sagacity and deep penetration, and his writings range over many subjects. The best known is hisHistory of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire. He also wrote a history of oriental music, which is no longer extant; the first critical history of Moldo-Walachia; the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of Moldavia,Descriptio Moldaviae, under the name ofHistoria Hieroglyphica, to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by animals; also the history of the two ruling houses of Brancovan and Cantacuzino; and a philosophical treatise on the old theme of the disputation between soul and body, written in Greek and Rumanian under the titleDivanul Lumii.
The latter’s son,Antioch Cantemir(born in Moldavia, 1700; died in Paris, 1744), became in 1731 Russian minister in Great Britain, and in 1736 minister plenipotentiary in Paris. He brought to London the Latin MS. from whence the English translation of his father’s history of the Turkish empire was made by N. Tindal, London, 1756, to which he added an exhaustive biography and bibliography of the author (pp. 455-460). He was a Russian poet and almost the first author of satires in modern Russian literature.
Bibliography.—Operele Principelui D. Cantemir, ed. Academia Română (1872 foll.); A. Philippide,Introducere in istoria limbei si literat. romane(Iasi, 1888), pp. 192-202; O.G. Lecca,Familiile boeresti romane(Bukarest, 1898), pp. 144-148; M. Gaster,Chrestom. româna, i. 322, 359 (in Cyrillic).
Bibliography.—Operele Principelui D. Cantemir, ed. Academia Română (1872 foll.); A. Philippide,Introducere in istoria limbei si literat. romane(Iasi, 1888), pp. 192-202; O.G. Lecca,Familiile boeresti romane(Bukarest, 1898), pp. 144-148; M. Gaster,Chrestom. româna, i. 322, 359 (in Cyrillic).
(M. G.)
CANTERBURY, CHARLES MANNERS-SUTTON,1st Viscount(1780-1845), speaker of the House of Commons, was the elder son of Charles Manners-Sutton (q.v.), afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and was born on the 29th of January 1780. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated B.A. in 1802, and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1806. At the general election of this year he was returned to parliamentin the Tory interest as member for Scarborough, and in 1809 became judge-advocate-general in the ministry of Spencer Perceval. He retained this position until June 1817, when he was elected speaker in succession to Charles Abbot, created Baron Colchester, refusing to exchange this office in 1827 for that of home secretary. In 1832 he abandoned Scarborough and was returned to parliament as one of the members for the university of Cambridge. Before the general election of 1832 Manners-Sutton had intimated his desire to retire from the position of speaker and had been voted an annuity of £4000 a year. The ministry of Earl Grey, however, reluctant to meet the reformed House of Commons with a new and inexperienced occupant of the chair, persuaded him to retain his office, and in 1833 he was elected speaker for the seventh time. Some feeling had been shown against him on this occasion owing to his Tory proclivities, and the Whigs frequently complained that outside the House he was a decided partisan. The result was that when a new parliament met in February 1835 a sharp contest ensued for the speakership, and Manners-Sutton was defeated by James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline. In March 1835 the retiring speaker was raised to the peerage as Baron Bottesford and Viscount Canterbury. In 1835 he was appointed high commissioner for Canada, but owing to domestic reasons he never undertook the appointment. He died in London on the 21st of July 1845 and was buried at Addington. His first wife was Lucy (d. 1815), daughter of John Denison of Ossington, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. Both his sons, Charles John (1812-1869), and John Henry Thomas (1814-1877), succeeded in turn to the viscounty. By his second wife, Ellen (d. 1845), widow of John Home-Purves, he had a daughter.
CANTERBURY,a city and county of a city, the metropolis of an archdiocese of the Church of England, and a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Kent, England, 62 m. E.S.E, of London by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 24,889. It lies on the river Stour, which here debouches from a beautiful narrow valley of the North Downs, the low but abrupt elevations of which command fine views of the city from the west and south, while the river presently enters upon the flat belt of land which separates the elevated Isle of Thanet from the rest of Kent. This belt represents the existence, in early historic times, of a sea-strait, and Fordwich, little more than 2 m. north-east of Canterbury, was once accessible for shipping. The city surrounds the precincts of the great cathedral.
The Cathedral.—It was to Canterbury, as the capital of Aethelberht, the fourth Saxon king of Kent, that in 597 Augustine and his fellow-missionaries came from Rome, and their settlement by Aethelberht in his capital became the origin of its position, held ever since, as the metropolis of the Church of England. Aethelberht, whose queen, Bertha, was already a Christian, gave the missionaries a church whose mythical founder was King Lucius. Augustine was a Benedictine and established the monastery of that order attached to the cathedral; this foundation was set upon a firm basis after the Norman Conquest by Archbishop Lanfranc, who placed its charge (as distinct from that of the diocese) in the hands of a prior.
Preparatory to the description of the cathedral, the principal epochs in the history of its erection may be noted. The Romano-British church occupied by St Augustine, of basilica form, remained long in use, though it was largelyHistory of the building.rebuilt by Archbishop Odo,c.950; after further vicissitudes it was destroyed by fire in 1067. Archbishop Lanfranc, taking up his office in 1070, undertook the building of an entirely new church, but under Anselm (c.1100) Prior Ernulf rebuilt the eastern part, and his successor Conrad carried on the work. A fire destroyed much of this part of the building in 1174, and from that year the architect, William of Sens, took up the work of rebuilding until 1178, when, on his suffering serious injury by falling from a scaffold, another William, commonly distinguished as the Englishman, carried on the work and completed it in 1184. In 1376 Archbishop Sudbury entered upon the construction of a new nave, and Prior Chillenden continued this under Archbishop Courtenay. The building of the central tower was undertakenc. 1495 by Prior Goldstone, with the counsel of Selling, his predecessor, and Archbishop Morton.
This Perpendicular tower is the most notable feature of the exterior. It rises in two storeys to a height of 235 ft. from the ground, and is known variously as Bell Harry tower from the great bell it contains, or as the Angel steepleExterior.from the gilded figure of an angel which formerly adorned the summit. The Perpendicular nave is flanked at the west front by towers, whose massive buttresses, rising in tiers, serve to enhance by contrast the beautiful effect of the unbroken straight lines of Bell Harry tower. The south-western of these towers is an original Perpendicular structure by Prior Goldstone, while the north-western was copied from it in 1834-1840, replacing a Norman tower which had carried a spire until 1705 and had become unsafe. The north-west and south-west transepts are included in Chillenden’s Perpendicular reconstruction; but east of these earlier work is met with. The south-east transept exhibits Norman work; the projecting chapel east of this is known as Anselm’s tower. The cathedral terminates eastward in a graceful apsidal form, with the final addition of the circular eastern chapel built by William the Englishman, and known as the Corona or Becket’s Crown. St Andrew’s tower or chapel on the north side, corresponding to Anselm’s on the south, is the work of Ernulf. From this point westward the various monastic buildings adjoin the cathedral on the north side, so that the south side is that from which the details of the exterior must be examined.
When the nave of the cathedral is entered, the complete separation of the interior into two main parts, not only owing to the distinction between the two main periods of building; but by an actual structural arrangement,Interior.is realized as an unusual and, as it happens, a most impressive feature. In most English cathedrals the choir is separated from the nave by a screen; at Canterbury not only is this the case, but the separation is further marked by a broad flight of steps leading up to the screen, the choir floor (but not its roof) being much higher than that of the nave. Chillenden, in rebuilding the nave, retained only the lower parts of some of the early Norman walls of Lanfranc and the piers of the central tower arches. These piers were encased or altered on Perpendicular lines. In the choir, the late 12th-century work of the two Williams, the notable features are its great length, the fine ornamentation and the use of arches both round and pointed, a remarkable illustration of the transition between the Norman and Early English styles; the prolific use of dark marble in the shafts and mouldings strongly contrasting with the light stone which is the material principally used; and, finally, the graceful incurve of the main arcades and walls at the eastern end of the choir where it joins the chapel of the Trinity, an arrangement necessitated by the preservation of the earlier flanking chapels or towers of St Anselm and St Andrew. From the altar eastward the floor of the church is raised again above that of the choir. The choir screen was built by Prior de Estria,c.1300. The organ is not seen, being hidden in the triforium and played from the choir. There are several tombs of archbishops in the choir. The south-east transept serves as the chapel of the King’s school and exhibits the work of William of Sens in alteration of that of Ernulf. Anselm’s chapel or tower, already mentioned, may be noticed again as containing a Decorated window (1336). This style is not common in the cathedral.
Behind the altar is Trinity Chapel, in the centre of which stood the celebrated shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury. The priory owed its chief fame to the murder of Archbishop Becket (1170) in the church, his canonization as StBecket’s shrine. Pilgrimages.Thomas of Canterbury, and the resort of the Christian world on pilgrimage to his shrine. Miracles were almost immediately said to be worked at his grave in the crypt and at the well in which his garments had been washed; and from the time when Henry II. did his penance for the murder in the church, and the battle of Alnwick was gained over the Scots a few days afterwards—it was supposed as a result—thefame of the martyr’s power and the popularity of his worship became established in England. On the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire of 1174, a magnificent shrine was erected for him in Trinity Chapel, which was built for the purpose, and became thronged for three centuries by pilgrims and worshippers of all classes, from kings and emperors downward. Henceforward the interests of the city became bound up in those of the cathedral, and were shown in the large number of hostels for the accommodation of pilgrims, and of shops containing wares especially suited to their tastes. A pilgrimage to Canterbury became not only a pious exercise, but a favourite summer excursion; and the poet Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, gives an admirable picture of such pilgrimages, with the manners and behaviour of a party of pilgrims, leisurely enjoying the journey and telling stories on the road. The English language even preserved two words originating in these customs—a “canterbury,” or a “canterbury tale,” a phrase used for a fiction, and a “canter,” which is a short form for a “canterbury gallop,” an allusion to the easy pace at which these pilgrimages were performed. The shrine with its vast collected wealth was destroyed, and every reminiscence connected with it as far as possible effaced, by King Henry VIII.’s commissioners in 1538. But some of the beautiful old windows of stained glass, illustrating the miracles wrought in connexion with the saint, are preserved. The north-west transept was the actual scene of Becket’s murder; the spot where he fell is shown on the floor, but this part of the building is of later date than the tragedy.
Close to the site of the shrine is the fine tomb of Edward the Black Prince, with a remarkable portrait effigy, and above it his helmet, shield and other equipment. There is also in this chapel the tomb of King Henry IV. The Corona, at the extreme cast of the church, contains the so-called St Augustine’s chair in which the archbishops are enthroned. It is of marble, but its name is not deserved, as it dates probably fromc.1200. The western part of the crypt, beneath the choir, is the work of Ernulf, and perhaps incorporates some of Lanfranc’s work. The chapel of St John or St Gabriel, beneath Anselm’s tower, is still used for service, in which the French language is used; it was devoted to this purpose in 1561, on behalf of French Protestant refugees, who were also permitted to carry on their trade as weavers in the crypt. The eastern and loftier part of the crypt, with its apsidal termination, is the work of William the Englishman. Here for some time lay the body of Becket, and here the celebrated penance of Henry II. was performed.
The chief entrance to the precincts is through an ornate gateway at the south-west, called Christchurch gateway, and built by Prior Goldstone in 1517. Among the remains of the monastic buildings there may be mentioned theMonastic buildings.Norman ruins of the infirmary, the fine two-storeyed treasury and the lavatory tower, Norman in the lower part and Perpendicular in the upper. The cloisters are of various dates, containing a little rich Norman work, but were very largely rebuilt by Prior Chillenden. The upper part of the chapter-house is also his work, but the lower is by Prior de Estria. The library is modern. The site of the New Hall of the monastery is covered by modern buildings of King’s school, but the Norman entry-stair is preserved—a magnificent example of the style, with highly ornate arcading.
The principal dimensions of the cathedral arc: length (outside) 522 ft., nave 178 ft., choir 180 ft. The nave is 71 ft. in breadth and 80 ft. in height.
The archbishop of Canterbury is primate of all England; the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury covers EnglandProvince and diocese.and Wales south of Cheshire and Yorkshire; and the diocese covers a great part of Kent with a small part of Sussex. The following is a list of archbishops of Canterbury:—
The archbishop has a seat at Lambeth Palace, London. There are fragments in Palace Street of the old archbishop’s palace which have been incorporated with a modern palace.
Other Ecclesiastical Foundations.—Canterbury naturally abounded in religious foundations. The most important, apart from the cathedral, was the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine. This was erected on a site granted by King Aethelberht outside his capital, in a tract called Longport. Augustine dedicated it to St Peter and St Paul, but Archbishop Dunstan added the sainted name of the founder to the dedication, and in common use it came to exclude those of the apostles. The site is now occupied by St Augustine’s Missionary College, founded in 1844 when the property was acquired by A.J.B. Beresford Hope. Some ancient remnants are preserved, the principal being the entrance gateway (1300), with the cemetery gate, dated a century later, and the guest hall, now the refectory; but the scanty ruins of St Pancras’ chapel are of high interest, and embody Roman material. The chapel is said to have received its dedication from St Augustine on account of the special association of St Pancras with children, and in connexion with the famous story of St Gregory, w hose attention was first attracted to Britainwhen he saw the fair-faced children of the Angles who had been brought to Rome, and termed them “not Angles but angels.”
There were lesser houses of many religious orders in Canterbury, but only two, those of the Dominicans near St Peter’s church in St Peter’s Street, and the Franciscans, also in St Peter’s Street, have left notable remains. The Dominican refectory is used as a chapel. Among the many churches, St Martin’s, Longport, is of the first interest. This was the scene of the earliest work of Augustine in Canterbury, and had seen Christian service before his arrival. Its walls contain Roman masonry, but whether it is in part a genuine remnant of a Romano-British Christian church is open to doubt. There are Norman, Early English and later portions; and the font may be in part pre-Norman, and is indeed associated by tradition with the baptism of Aethelberht himself. St Mildred’s church exhibits Early English and Perpendicular work, and the use of Roman material is again visible here. St Paul’s is of Early English origin; St Dunstan’s, St Peter’s and Holy Cross are mainly Decorated and Perpendicular. The village of Harbledown, on the hill west of Canterbury on the London road, from the neighbourhood of which a beautiful view over the city is obtained, has many associations with the ecclesiastical life of Canterbury. It is mentioned by Chaucer in his pilgrimage under the name, appropriate to its site, of “Bob up and down.” The almshouses, which occupy the site of Lanfranc’s hospital for lepers, include an ancient hall and a chapel in which the west door and northern nave arcade are Norman, and are doubtless part of Lanfranc’s buildings. The neighbouring parish church is in great part rebuilt. Among the numerous charitable institutions in Canterbury there are several which may be called the descendants of medieval ecclesiastical foundations.
City Buildings, &c.—The old city walls may be traced, and the public walk called the Dane John (derived probably fromdonjon) follows the summit of a high artificial mound within the lines. The cathedral is finely seen from this point. Only the massive turreted west gate, of the later part of the 14th century, remains out of the former six city gates. The site of the castle is not far from the Dane John, and enough remains of the Norman keep to show its strength and great size. Among other buildings and institutions there may be mentioned the guildhall in High Street, of the early part of the 18th century; the museum, which includes a fine collection of local, including many Roman, relics; and the school of art, under municipal management, but founded by the painter T. Sidney Cooper (d. 1902), who was a resident at Harbledown. A modern statue of a muse commemorates the poet Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a native of the city; and a pillar indicates the place where a number of persons were burnt at the stake in the reign of Mary.
The King’s school, occupying buildings adjacent to the cathedral, developed out of the early teaching furnished by the monastery. It was refounded by Henry VIII. in 1541 (whence its name), and is managed on the lines of ordinary public schools. It has about 250 boys; and there is besides a junior or preparatory school. The school is still connected with the ecclesiastical foundation, the dean and chapter being its governors.
A noted occasion of festivity in Canterbury is the Canterbury cricket-week, when the Kent county cricket eleven engages in matches with other first-class teams, and many visitors are attracted to the city.
Canterbury has a considerable agriculture trade, breweries, tanneries, brickworks and other manufactures. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The city is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3955 acres.
History of the City.—The existence of a Romano-British town on the site of Canterbury has already been indicated. It was namedDurovernum, and was a flourishing county town on the road from the Kentish ports to London. Mosaic pavements and other remains have been found in considerable abundance. The city, known by the Saxons asCantwaraburh, the town of the men of Kent, was the metropolis of Aethelberht’s kingdom. At the time of the Domesday survey Canterbury formed part of the royal demesne and was governed by a portreeve as it had been before the Conquest. In the 13th and 14th centuries, two bailiffs presided over the burghmote, assisted by a larger and smaller council. Henry II., by an undated charter, confirmed former privileges and granted to the citizens that no one should implead them outside the city walls and that the pleas of the crown should be decided according to the customs of the city. In 1256 Henry III. granted them the city at an annual fee farm of £60, also the right of electing their bailiffs. Confirmations of former charters with additional liberties were granted by later sovereigns, and Henry VI. incorporated Canterbury, which he called “one of our most ancient cities,” under the style of the mayor and commonalty, the mayor to be elected by the burgesses. James I. in 1609 confirmed these privileges, giving the burgesses the right to be called a body corporate and to elect twelve aldermen and a common council of twenty-four. Charles II., after calling in the charters of corporations, granted a confirmation in 1684. Canterbury was first represented in parliament in 1283, and it continued to return two members until 1885, when the number was reduced to one. A fair was granted by Henry VI. to the citizens to be held in the city or suburbs on the 4th of August and the two days following; other fairs were in the hands of the monasteries; the corn and cattle markets and a general market have been held by prescription from time immemorial. Canterbury was a great centre of the silk-weaving trade in the 17th century, large numbers of Walloons, driven by persecution to England, having settled there in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1676 Charles II. granted a charter of incorporation to the Walloon congregation under style of the master, wardens and fellowship of weavers in the city of Canterbury. The market for the sale of corn and hops was regulated by a local act in 1801.
See A.P. Stanley,Historical Memorials of Canterbury(London, 1855); J. Brent,Canterbury in the Olden Time(Canterbury, 1879); J.W. Legg and W.H. St J. Hope,Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury(London, 1902);Victoria County History, Kent.
See A.P. Stanley,Historical Memorials of Canterbury(London, 1855); J. Brent,Canterbury in the Olden Time(Canterbury, 1879); J.W. Legg and W.H. St J. Hope,Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury(London, 1902);Victoria County History, Kent.
CANTHARIDES,orSpanish Flies, the common blister-beetles (Cantharis vesicatoria) of European pharmacy. They are bright, iridescent, golden-green or bluish-coloured beetles (seeColeoptera), with the breast finely punctured and pubescent, head and thorax with a longitudinal channel, and elytra with two slightly elevated lines. The insect is from half-an-inch to an inch in length, and from one to two lines broad, the female being broader in the abdomen and altogether larger than the male. It is a native of the south of Europe, being found in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and the south of Russia, and it is also obtained in Siberia. The Spanish fly is also occasionally found in the south of England. The insects feed upon ash, lilac, privet and jasmine leaves, and are found more rarely on elder, rose, apple and poplar trees. Their presence is made known by a powerful disagreeable odour, which penetrates to a considerable distance. They are collected for use at late evening or early morning, while in a dull bedewed condition, by shaking them off the trees or shrubs into cloths spread on the ground; and they are killed by dipping them into hot water or vinegar, or by exposing them for some time over the vapour of vinegar. They are then dried and put up for preservation in glass-stoppered bottles; and they require to be very carefully guarded against mites and various other minute insects, to the attacks of which they are peculiarly liable. It has been shown by means of spectroscopic observations that the green colour of the elytra, &c., is due to the presence of chlorophyll; and that the variations of the spectral bands are sufficient, after the lapse of many years, to indicate with some certainty the kind of leaves on which the insects were feeding shortly before they were killed.
Cantharides owe their value to the presence of a peculiar chemical principle, to which the namecantharidinhas been given. It is most abundant in large full-grown insects, while in very young specimens no cantharidin at all has been found. From about one-fourth to rather more than one-half per cent, of cantharidin has been obtained from different samples; and it has been ascertained that the elytra or wing-sheaths of the insect, which alone are used in pharmacy, contain more of the active principle than the soft parts taken together; butapparently cantharidin is most abundant in the eggs and generative organs.
Cantharidin constitutes from ½ to 1% of cantharides. It has the formula C10H14O4, and on hydrolysis is converted into cantharinic acid, C10H14O5. It crystallizes in colourless plates and is readily soluble in alcohol, ether, &c., but not in water. The British Pharmacopeia contains a large number of preparations of cantharides, but the only one needing special mention is the tincture, which is meant for internal administration; the small dose is noteworthy, five minims being probably the maximum for safety.
The external action of cantharides or cantharidin is extremely characteristic. When it is applied to the skin there are no obvious consequences for some hours. Thereafter the part becomes warm and painful, owing to marked local vascular dilatation. This is the typicalrubefacientaction. Soon afterwards there is an accumulation under the epidermis of a serum derived from the dilated blood-vessels. The numerous small blisters or vesicles thus derived coalesce, forming a large sac full of “blister-fluid.” The drug is described as a counter-irritant, though the explanation of this action is very doubtful. Apparently there is an influence on the afferent nerves of the part which causes a reflex contraction—some authors say dilatation—of the vessels in the internal organs that are under the control of the same segment of the nervous system as that supplying the area of skin from which the exciting impulse comes. When applied in this fashion a certain quantity of the cantharides is absorbed.
Taken internally in any but minute doses, the drug causes the most severe gastro-intestinal irritation, the vomited and evacuated matters containing blood, and the patient suffering agonizing pain and extreme depression. The further characteristic symptoms are displayed in the genito-urinary tract. The drug circulates in the blood in the form of an albuminate and is slowly excreted by the kidneys. The effect of large doses is to cause great pain in the renal region and urgent wish to micturate. The urine is nevertheless small in amount and contains albumen and blood owing to the local inflammation produced in the kidney by the passage of the poison through that organ. The drug often has a marked aphrodisiac action, producing priapism, or in the female sex the onset of the catamenia or abortion.
Cantharides is used externally for its counter-irritant action. There are certain definite contra-indications to its use. It must not be employed in cases of renal disease, owing to the risks attendant upon absorption. It must always be employed with caution in the case of elderly persons and children; and it must not be applied to a paralysed limb (in which the power of healing is deficient), nor to parts upon which the patient lies, as otherwise a bed-sore is likely to follow its use. The drug is administered internally in certain cases of impotence and occasionally in other conditions. Its criminal employment is usually intended to heighten sexual desire, and has frequently led to death.
The toxic symptoms have already been detailed, the patient usually dying from arrest of the renal functions. The treatment is far from satisfactory, and consists in keeping up the strength and diluting the poison in the blood and in the urine by the administration of bland fluids, such as soda-water, milk and plain water, in quantities as large as possible. External warmth should also be applied to the regions specially affected by the drug.
A very large number of other insects belonging to the same family possess blistering properties, owing to their containing cantharidin. Of these the most remarkable is the Telini “fly” of India (Mylabris cichorii), the range of which extends from Italy and Greece through Egypt and central Asia as far as China. It is very rich in cantharidin, yielding fully twice as much as ordinary cantharides. Several green-coloured beetles are, on account of their colour, used as adulterants to cantharides, but they are very easily detected by examination with the eye, or, if powdered, with the microscope.
CANTICLES.The Old Testament book of Canticles, or the Song of Solomon, is called in HebrewThe Song of Songs(that is,the choicest of songs), or, according to the full title which stands as the first verse of the book,The choicest of the songs of Solomon. In the Western versions the book holds the third place among the so-called Solomonic writings, following Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew Bibles it stands among theMegilloth, the five books of the Hagiographa which have a prominent place in the Synagogue service. In printed Bibles and in German MSS. it is the first of these because it is read at the Passover, which is the first great feast of the sacred year of the Jews.
No part of the Bible has called forth a greater diversity of opinions than the Song of Solomon, and this for two reasons. In the first place, the book holds so unique a position in the Old Testament, that the general analogy of Hebrew literature is a very inadequate key to the verbal difficulties, the artistic structure, and the general conception and purpose of the poem. In point of language the departures from ordinary Hebrew are almost always in the direction of Aramaic. Many forms unique in Biblical Hebrew are at once explained by the Aramaic dialects, but not a few are still obscure. The philological difficulties of the book are, however, less fundamental than those which lie in the unique character of the Song of Solomon in point of artistic form, and in the whole atmosphere of thought and feeling in which it moves. Even in these respects it is not absolutely isolated. Parallels to the peculiar imagery may be found in the book of Hosea, in Ezekiel xvi. and xxiii. and above all in the 45th Psalm; but such links of union to the general mass of the Old Testament literature are too slight to be of material assistance in the solution of the literary problem of the book. Here, again, as in the lexical difficulties already referred to, we are tempted or compelled to argue from the distant and insecure analogy of other Eastern literatures, or are thrown back upon traditions of uncertain origin and ambiguous authority.
The power of tradition has been the second great source of confusion of opinion about the Song of Solomon. To tradition we owe the title, which apparently indicates Solomon as the author and not merely as the subject of the book. The authority of titles in the Old Testament is often questionable, and in the present case it is certain on linguistic grounds that the title is not from the hand that wrote the poem; while to admit that it gives a correct account of the authorship is to cut away at one stroke all the most certain threads of connexion between the book and our historical knowledge of the Old Testament people and literature.
To tradition, again, we owe the prejudice in favour of an allegorical interpretation, that is, of the view that from verse to verse the Song sets forth the history of a spiritual and not merely of an earthly love. To apply such an exegesis to Canticles is to violate one of the first principles of reasonable interpretation. True allegories are never without internal marks of their allegorical design. The language of symbol is not so perfect that a long chain of spiritual ideas can be developed without the use of a single spiritual word or phrase; and even were this possible it would be false art in the allegorist to hide away his sacred thoughts behind a screen of sensuous and erotic imagery, so complete and beautiful in itself as to give no suggestion that it is only the vehicle of a deeper sense. Apart from tradition, no one, in the present state of exegesis, would dream of allegorizing poetry which in its natural sense is so full of purpose and meaning, so apt in sentiment, and so perfect in imagery as the lyrics of Canticles. We are not at liberty to seek for allegory except where the natural sense is incomplete. This is not the case in the Song of Solomon. On the contrary, every form of the allegorical interpretation which has been devised carries its own condemnation in the fact that it takes away from the artistic unity of the poem and breaks natural sequences of thought.1The allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon bad its rise in the very same conditions which forced a deepersense, now universally discarded, upon so many other parts of scripture. Yet strangely enough there is no evidence that the Jews of Alexandria extended to the book their favourite methods of interpretation. The arguments which have been adduced to prove that the Septuagint translation implies an allegorical exegesis are inadequate;2and Philo does not mention the book. Nor is there any allusion to Canticles in the New Testament. The first trace of an allegorical view identifying Israel with the “spouse” appears to be in the Fourth Book of Ezra, near the close of the 1st Christian century (v. 24, 26; vii. 26). Up to this time the canonicity of the Canticles was not unquestioned; and the final decision as to the sanctity of the book, so energetically carried through by R. Aqiba, when he declared that “the whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the scriptures (or Hagiographa) are holy, but the Canticles most holy,” must be understood as being at the same time a victory of the allegorical interpretation over the last remains of a view which regarded the poem as simply erotic.3
The form in which the allegorical theory became fixed in the synagogue is contained in the MidrashChazitaand in the Targum, which is a commentary rather than a translation. The spouse is Israel, her royal lover the divine king, and the poem is explained as tracing the great events of the people’s history from the Exodus to the Messianic glory and final restoration.4
The authority of Origen, who, according to Jerome, surpassed himself in his commentary of ten volumes on this book, established the allegorical theory in the Christian church in the two main forms in which it has since prevailed. The bridegroom is Christ, the bride either the church or the believing soul. The latter conception is, of course, that which lends itself most readily to purposes of mystical edification, and which has made Canticles the manual in all ages of a wide-spread type of religious contemplation. But the other view, which identifies the bride with the church, must be regarded as the standard of orthodox exegesis. Of course the allegorical principle admitted of very various modifications, and readily adapted itself to new religious developments, such as the rise of Mariolatry. Within the limits of the orthodox traditions the allegory took various colours, according as its mystical or its prophetical aspect was insisted on. Among medieval commentators of the former class S. Bernard holds a pre-eminent place; while the second class is represented by Nicolaus de Lyra, who, himself a converted Jew, modified the Jewish interpretation so as to find in the book an account of theprocessus ecclesiaeunder the Old and New Testaments. The prophetic exegesis reached its culminating point in the post-Reformation period, when Cocceius found in the Canticles a complete conspectus of church history. But the relaxation of traditional authority opened the door to still stranger vagaries of interpretation. Luther was tempted to understand the book of the political relations of Solomon and his people. Others detected the loves of Solomon and Wisdom—a view which found a supporter in Rosenmüller.
The history of the literal interpretation begins with the great “commentator” of the Syrian Church, Theodorus of Mopsuestia (died 429), who condemned equally the attempt to find in the book a prophecy of the blessings given to the church, and the idea even at that time expressed in some quarters that the book is immoral. Theodorus regarded the Canticles as a poem written by Solomon in answer to the complaints of his people about his Egyptian marriage; and this was one of the heresies charged upon him after his death, which led to his condemnation at the second council of Constantinople (553a.d.). A literal interpretation was not again attempted till in 1544 Chateillon (Castellio or Castalion) lost his regency at Geneva for proposing to expel the book from the canon as impure. Grotius (Annot. in V.T., 1644) took up a more moderate position. Without denying the possibility of a secondary reference designed by Solomon to give his poem a more permanent value, he regards the Canticles as primarily anὀαρίστυς(conjugal prattle) between Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter. The distinction of a primary and secondary sense gradually became current not only among the Remonstrants, but in England (Lightfoot, Lowth) and even in Catholic circles (Bossuet, 1693). In the actual understanding of the book in its literal sense no great progress was made. Solomon was still viewed as the author, and for the most part the idea that the poem is a dramatic epithalamium was borrowed from Origen and the allegorists, and applied to the marriage of Pharaoh’s daughter.
From Grotius to Lowth the idea of a typical reference designed by Solomon himself appears as a mere excrescence on the natural interpretation, but as an excrescence which could not be removed without perilling the place of Canticles in the canon, which, indeed, was again assailed by Whiston in 1723. But in his notes on Lowth’s lectures, J.D. Michaelis, who regarded the poem as a description of the enduring happiness of true wedded love long after marriage, proposed to drop the allegory altogether, and to rest the canonicity of the book, as of those parts of Proverbs which treat of conjugal affection, on the moral picture it presents (1758).
Then came Herder’s exquisite little treatise onSolomon’s Songs of Love, the Oldest and Sweetest of the East(1778). Herder, possessing delicacy of taste and sympathetic poetical genius, delighted in the Canticles as the transparently natural expression of innocent and tender love. He expressed the idea that the poem is simply a sequence of independent songs without inner unity, grouped so as to display various phases and stages of love in a natural order, culminating in the placid joys of wedded life. The theory of Herder, which refuses to acknowledge any continuity in the book, was accepted by Eichhorn on the part of scholars, and with some hesitation by Goethe on the part of the poets. Commentaries based on this view are those of Döpke (1829), Magnus (1842), Noyes (1846).
The prevalent view of the 19th century, however, recognizes in the poem a more or less pronounced dramatic character, and following Jacobi (1771) distinguishes the shepherd, the true love of the Shulamite, from King Solomon, who is made to play an ignominious part. Propounded by Stäudlin (1792) and Ammon (1795), this view was energetically carried out by Umbreit (1820), and above all by Ewald, whose acuteness gave the theory a new development, while his commanding influence among Hebrew scholars acquired for it general recognition. Ewald assumed a very simple dramatic structure, and did not in his first publication (1826) venture to suppose that the poem had ever been acted on a stage. His less cautious followers have been generally tempted to dispose of difficulties by introducing more complicated action and additional interlocutors (so, for example, Hitzig, 1855; Ginsburg, 1857; Renan, 1860); while Böttcher (1850) did his best to reduce the dramatic exposition to absurdity by introducing the complexities and stage effects of a modern operetta. Another view is that of Delitzsch (1851 and 1875) and his followers, who also plead for a dramatic form—though without supposing that the piece was ever acted—but adhere to the traditional notion that Solomon is the author, who celebrates his love to a peasant maiden, whom he made his wife, and in whose company the proud monarch learned to appreciate the sweetness of a true affection and a simple rustic life.
In view of the prevalence of the “dramatic” theory of Canticles during the 19th century, and its retention by some comparatively recent writers (Oettli, Driver, Adeney, Harper), it seems desirable that this theory should be presented in some detail. A convenient summary of the form it assumed in the hands of Ewald (the shepherd-hypothesis) and of Delitzsch (the king-hypothesis) is given by Driver (Literature of the OldTestament, ch. x. § 1). The following presentation of the theory, on the general lines of Ewald, gives that form of it which Robertson Smith was able to accept in 1876.
The centre of attraction is throughout a female figure, and the unity of this figure is the chief test of the unity of the book. In the long canto, i. 1-ii .7, the heroine appears in a royal palace (i. 4) among the daughters of Jerusalem, who are thus presumably ladies of the court of Zion. At i. 9, an additional interlocutor is introduced, who is plainly a king, and apparently Solomon (i. 9, 12). He has just risen from table, and praises the charms of the heroine with the air of a judge of beauty, but without warmth. He addresses her simply as “my friend” (not as English version, “my love”). The heroine, on the contrary, is passionately in love, but nothing can be plainer than that the object of her affection is not the king. She is not at home in the palace, for she explains (i. 6) that she has spent her life as a peasant girl in the care of vineyards. Her beloved, whom she knows not where to find (i. 7), but who lies constantly on her heart and is cherished in her bosom like a spray of the sweet henna flowers which Oriental ladies delight to wear (i. 13, 14), is like herself a peasant—a shepherd lad (i. 7)—with whom she was wont to sit in the fresh greenwood under the mighty boughs of the cedars (i. 16, 17). Even before the king’s entrance the ladies of the court are impatient at so silly an affection, and advise her, “if she is really so witless,” to begone and rejoin her plebeian lover (i. 8). To them she appeals in ii. 5, 6, where her self-control, strung to the highest pitch as she meets the compliments of the king with reminiscences of her absent lover, breaks down in a fit of half-delirious sickness. The only words directed to the king are those of i. 12, which, if past tenses are substituted for the presents of the English version, contain a pointed rebuff. Finally, ii. 7 is, on the plainest translation, a charge not to arouse love till it please. The moral of the scene is the spontaneity of true affection.
Now, at viii. 5, a female figure advances leaning upon her beloved, with whom she claims inseparable union,—“for love is strong as death, its passion inflexible as the grave, its fire a divine flame which no waters can quench or floods drown. Yea, if a man would give all his wealth for love he would only be contemned.” This is obviously the sentiment of ii. 7, and the suitor, whose wealth is despised, must almost of necessity be identified with the king of chapter i., if, as seems reasonable, we place viii. ii, 12 in the mouth of the same speaker—“King Solomon has vineyards which bring him a princely revenue, and enrich even the farmers. Let him and them keep their wealth; my vineyard is before me” (i.e.I possess it in present fruition). The last expression is plainly to be connected with i. 6. But this happiness has not been reached without a struggle. The speaker has proved herself an impregnable fortress (ver. 10), and, armed only with her own beauty and innocence, has been in his eyes as one that found peace. The sense is that, like a virgin fortress, she has compelled her assailant to leave her in peace. To these marks of identity with the heroine of ch. i. are to be added that she appears here as dwelling in gardens, there as a keeper of vineyards (i. 6, and viii. 13), and that as there it was her brethren that prescribed her duties, so here she apparently quotes words in which her brothers, while she was still a child, speculated as to her future conduct and its reward (viii. 8, 9).
If this analysis of the commencement and close of the book is correct, it is certain that the poem is in a sense dramatic, that is, that it uses dialogue and monologue to develop a story. The heroine appears in the opening scene in a difficult and painful situation, from which in the last chapter she is happily extricated. But the dramatic progress which the poem exhibits scarcely involves a plot in the usual sense of that word. The words of viii. 9, 10 clearly indicate that the deliverance of the heroine is due to no combination of favouring circumstances, but to her own inflexible fidelity and virtue.
The constant direction of the maiden’s mind to her true love is partly expressed in dialogue with the ladies of the court (the daughters of Jerusalem), who have no dramatic individuality, and whose only function in the economy of the piece is to give the heroine opportunity for a more varied expression of her feelings. In i. 8 we found them contemptuous. In chapter iii. they appear to be still indifferent; for when the heroine relates a dream in which the dull pain of separation and the uneasy consciousness of confinement and danger in the unsympathetic city disappear for a moment in imagined reunion with her lover, they are either altogether silent or reply only by taking up a festal part song describing the marriage procession of King Solomon (iii. 6-11), which stands in jarring contrast to the feelings of the maiden.5A second dream (v. 2-8), more weird and melancholy, and constructed with that singular psychological felicity which characterizes the dreams of the Old Testament, gains more sympathy, and the heroine is encouraged to describe her beloved at large (v. 10-vi. 3). The structure of these dialogues is so simple, and their purpose is so strictly limited to the exhibition of the character and affection of the maiden, that it is only natural to find them supplemented by a free use of pure monologue, in which the heroine recalls the happiness of past days, or expresses her rising hope of reunion with her shepherd, and restoration to the simple joys of her rustic life. The vivid reminiscence of ii. 8-17 takes the form of a dialogue within the main dialogue of the poem, a picture within a picture—the picture of her beloved as he stood at her window in the early spring time, and of her own merry heart as she laughingly answered him in the song with which watchers of the vineyards frighten away the foxes. It is, of course, a fault of perspective that this reminiscence is as sharp in outline and as strong in colour as the main action. But no one can expect perspective in such early art, and recollection of the past is clearly enough separated from present reality by ii. 16, 17. The last monologue (vii. 10-viii. 3), in which the hope of immediate return with her lover is tempered by maidenly shame, and a maiden’s desire for her mother’s counsel, is of special value for a right appreciation of the psychology of the love which the poem celebrates, and completes a picture of this flower of the northern valleys which is not only firm in outline, but delicate in touch. The subordinate action which supports the portraiture of the maiden of Galilee is by no means easy to understand.
We come next to chapter vi., which again sings the praises of the heroine, and takes occasion in this connexion to introduce, with the same want of perspective as we observed in ch. ii., a dialogue descriptive of Solomon’s first meeting with the maiden. We learn that she was an inhabitant of Shulem or Shunem in Issachar, whom the king and his train surprised in a garden on the occasion of a royal progress through the north. Her beauty drew from the ladies of the court a cry of admiration. The maiden shrinks back with the reply—“I was gone down into my garden to see its growth.... I know not how my soul hath brought me among the chariots of princes”; but she is commanded to turn and let herself be seen in spite of her bashful protest—“Why do ye gaze on the Shulamite as at a dance of Mahanaim (a spectacle)?” Now the person in whose mouth this relation is placed must be an eye-witness of the scene, and so none other than the king. But in spite of the verbal repetition of several of the figures of ch. iv.... the tone in which the king now addresses the Shulamite is quite changed. She is not only beautiful but terrible, her eyes trouble him, and he cannot endure their gaze. She is unique among women, the choice and only one of her mother. The unity of action can only be maintained by ignoring vii. 1-9, and taking the words of Solomon in chapter vi. in their obvious sense as implying that the king at length recognizes in the maiden qualities of soul unknown in the harem, a character which compels respect, as well as a beauty that inflames desire. The change of feeling which was wrought in the daughters of Jerusalem in the previous scene now extends to Solomon himself, and thus the glad utterances of vii. 10, seq.,have a sufficient motive, and thedénouementis no longer violent and unprepared.
Thenodusof the action is fully given in chapter i., the final issue in chapter viii. The solution lies entirely in the character and constancy of the heroine, which prevail, in the simplest possible way, first over the ladies of the court and then over the king.
The attractiveness of the above theory cannot be denied; but it may be asked whether the attraction does not lie in the appeal to modern taste of a story which is largely the product of modern imagination. It supposes a freedom of intercourse between lovers inconceivable for the East. The initial situation of the maiden in the harem of Solomon is left as a problem for the reader to discover, until he comes to its supposed origin in vi. 11; the expedient might be granted in the case of one of Browning’sMen and Women, but seems very improbable in the present case. The more elaborate dramatic theories can find no parallel in Semitic literature to the “drama” of Canticles, the book of Job being no exception to this statement; whilst even the simpler theories ask us to believe that the essential parts of the story—the rape of the Shulamite, the change in Solomon’s disposition, her release from the harem—are to be supplied by the reader from obscure and disputable references. More serious still is the fact that any progress of action from first to last is so difficult to prove. In the first chapter we listen to a woman speaker desiring to be kissed by the man who has brought her into his chambers, and speaking of “our bed”; in the last we leave her “leaning upon her beloved.” The difficulties of detail are equally great. To suppose that all the male love-making, by hypothesis unsuccessful, belongs to Solomon, whilst the heroine addresses her passionate words to the continuously absent shepherd, is obviously unconvincing; yet, if this shepherd speaks in iv. 8-v. 1, how are we to explain his appearance in the royal harem? This and other difficulties were acknowledged by Robertson Smith, notably the presence of vii. 1-9, which he proposed to set aside as an interpolation, because of its sensuality and of the difficulty of working it into the dramatic scheme. The fact that this passage has subsequently become the central element in the new interpretation of the book is, perhaps, a warning against violent measures with difficulties.
Attention has already been drawn to Herder’s proposal, accepted by some later writers, including Diestel and Reuss, to regard the book as a collection of detached songs. This received new and striking confirmation from the anthropological data supplied by J.G. Wetstein (1873), Prussian consul at Damascus. His observations of the wedding customs of Syrian peasants led him to believe that Canticles is substantially a collection of songs originally sung at such festivities. Wetstein’s contribution was republished shortly afterwards by Delitzsch, in an appendix to hisCommentary; but it received little attention. The first amongst Old Testament scholars to perceive its importance seems to have been Stade, who accepted Wetstein’s view in a footnote to hisHistory of the Jewish People(ii. p. 197), published in 1888; to Budde, however, belongs the distinction of the systematic and detailed use of Wetstein’s suggestions, especially in hisCommentary(1898). This interpretation of the book is accepted by Kautzsch (1896), Siegfried (1898), Cheyne (1899), and other eminent scholars. The last-named states the theory tersely as follows: “The book is an anthology of songs used at marriage festivals in or near Jerusalem, revised and loosely connected by an editor without regard to temporal sequence” (Ency. Bibl.691). The character of the evidence which has contributed to the acceptance of this view may be indicated in Wetstein’s own statements:—