Ring-stories have a knack of running in one groove. Herodotus tells us

how Amasis advised Polycrates, as a charm against misfortune, to throw

away some gem he especially valued; how, taking the advice, Polycrates

went seaward in a boat, and cast his favorite ring into the ocean; and

how, a few days afterward, a fisherman caught a large fish so

extraordinarily fine, that he thought it fit only for the royal table,

and accordingly presented it to the fortunate monarch, who ordered it to

be dressed for supper; and lo! when the fish was opened, the surprised

cook’s astonished eye beheld his master’s cast-away ring; much to that

master’s delight, but his adviser’s dismay; for when Amasis heard of the

wonderful event, he immediately dispatched a herald to break his

contract of friendship with Polycrates, feeling confident the latter

would come to an ill end, “as he prospered in everything, even finding

what he had thrown away.” The city of Glasgow owes the ring-holding

salmon figuring in its armorial bearings to a legend concerning its

patron saint, Kentigern, thus told in the _Acta Sanctorum_: A queen who

formed an improper attachment to a handsome soldier, put upon his finger

a precious ring which her own lord had conferred upon her. The king,

made aware of the fact, but dissembling his anger, took an opportunity,

in hunting, while the soldier lay asleep beside the Clyde, to snatch off

the ring, and throw it into the river. Then returning home along with

the soldier, he demanded of the queen the ring he had given her. She

sent secretly to the soldier for the ring, which could not be restored.

In great terror, she then despatched a messenger to ask the assistance

of the holy Kentigern. He, who knew of the affair before being informed

of it, went to the river Clyde, and having caught a salmon, took from

the stomach the missing ring, which he sent to the queen. She joyfully

went with it to the king, who, thinking he had wronged her, swore he

would be revenged upon her accusers; but she, affecting a forgiving

temper, besought him to pardon them as she had done. At the same time,

she confessed her error to Kentigern, and solemnly vowed to be more

careful of her conduct in future. In 1559, a merchant and alderman of

Newcastle, named Anderson, handling his ring as he leaned over the

bridge, dropped it into the Tyne. Some time after, his servant bought a

salmon in the market, in whose stomach the lost ring was found: its

value enhanced by the strange recovery, the ring became an heirloom and

was in the possession of one of the Alderman’s decendants some forty

years ago. A similar accident, ending in a similar way, is recorded to

have happened to one of the dukes of Lorraine.

DEATH PROPHECIES.

Monk Gerbert, who wore the tiara as Sylvester II., a man of whom it was

said that—thanks to the devil’s assistance—he never left anything

unexecuted which he ever conceived, anticipating Roger Bacon, made a

brazen head capable of answering like an oracle. From this creature of

his own, Gerbert learned he would not die until he had performed mass in

Jerusalem. He thereupon determined to live forever by taking good care

never to go near the holy city. Like all dealers with the Evil One, he

was destined to be cheated. Performing mass one day in Rome, Sylvester

was seized with sudden illness, and upon inquiring the name of the

church in which he had officiated, heard, to his dismay, that it was

popularly called Jerusalem; then he knew his end was at hand; and it was

not long before it came. Nearly five hundred years after this event

happened, Master Robert Fabian, who must not be suspected of inventing

history, seeing, as sheriff and alderman, he was wont to pillory public

liars, wrote of Henry IV., “After the feast of Christmas, while he was

making his prayers at St. Edward’s shrine, he became so sick, that such

as were about him feared that he would have died right there; wherefore

they, for his comfort, bare him into the abbot’s place, and lodged him

in a chamber; and there, upon a pallet, laid him before the fire, where

he lay in great agony a certain time. At length, when he was come to

himself, not knowing where he was, he freyned [asked] of such as were

there about him what place that was; the which shewed to him that it

belonged unto the Abbot of Westminster; and for he felt himself so sick,

he commanded to ask if that chamber had any special name. Whereunto it

was answered, that it was named Jerusalem. Then said the king, ‘Laud be

to the Father of Heaven, for now I know I shall die in this chamber,

according to the prophecy of me beforesaid, that I should die in

Jerusalem;’ and so after, he made himself ready, and died shortly after,

upon the Day of St. Cuthbert, on the 20th day of March, 1413.”

BATTLES.

Three of the most famous battles recorded in English history were marked

by a strange contrast between the behavior of the opposing armies on the

eve of the fight. At Hastings, the Saxons spent the night in singing,

feasting, and drinking; while the Normans were confessing themselves and

receiving the sacrament. At Agincourt, “the poor condemned English” said

their prayers, and sat patiently by their watch-fires, to “inly ruminate

the morrow’s danger;” while the over-confident French revelled the night

through, and played for the prisoners they were never to take. “On the

eve of Bannockburn,” says Paston, who fought there on the beaten side,

“ye might have seen the Englishmen bathing themselves in wine, and

casting their gorgets; there was crying, shouting, wassailing, and

drinking, with other rioting far above measure. On the other side we

might have seen the Scots, quiet, still, and close, fasting the eve of

St. John the Baptist, laboring in love of the liberties of their

country.” Our readers need not be told that in each case the orderly,

prayerful army proved victorious, and so made the treble parallel

perfect.

BISHOP HATTO.

The legend of Hatto, bishop of Mayence, has been preserved in stanzas

which are well remembered by school children. To avoid the importunity

of the starving during a period of famine, the wicked prelate collected

them into a barn,

“And while for mercy on Christ they call,

He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all.”

Thereupon he was attacked by an army of mice, and escaped to his tower

(the Mäuseschloss) on a rock in the Rhine. But they quickly followed him

and poured in by thousands, “in at the windows and in at the door,”

until he was overpowered and destroyed.

“They gnawed the flesh from every limb,

For they were sent to do judgment on him.”

The same story is told of the Swiss baron, von Güttingen, who was

pursued and devoured by mice in his castle in Lake Constance. It is also

told, with a variation, of the Polish King Popiel. When the Poles

murmured at his bad government, and sought redress, he summoned the

chief remonstrants to his palace, poisoned them, and had their bodies

thrown into the lake Gopolo. He sought refuge from the mice within a

circle of fire, but was overrun and eaten by them.

Prototypes.

THE OLDEST PROVERB.

It appears from I Samuel xxiv. 13, that the oldest proverb on record,

is, “Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked;” since David, in his time,

declared it to be “a proverb of the ancients;” consequently older than

any proverb of his son Solomon.

SHAKSPEARE SAID IT FIRST.

In one of Clough’s letters he tells an amusing story of a Calvinistic

old lady, who, on being asked about the Universalists, observed,—“Yes,

they expect that everybody will be saved, but we look for better

things.” How like this is to the admirable confusion of Sir Andrew

Aguecheek, who, in his letter of challenge, (_Twelfth Night_, iii. 4,)

concludes thus:—

“Fare thee well, and God have mercy upon one of our souls!

He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better!”

CINDERELLA’S SLIPPER.

A story somewhat similar to that of Cinderella has been handed down from

the Greek. It is reported of Rhodopis,—a Thracian slave, who was

purchased and manumitted by Charaxus of Mytilene, and afterward settled

in Egypt,—that one day, while she was in the bath, an eagle, having

flown down, snatched one of her slippers from an attendant, and carried

it to Memphis. Psammitichus, the king, at the time, was sitting on his

tribunal, and while engaged in dispensing justice, the eagle, settling

above his head, dropped the sandal into his bosom. Astonished by the

singularity of the event, and struck by the diminutive size and elegant

shape of the sandal, the king ordered search to be made for the owner

throughout the land of Egypt. Having found her at Naucratis, she was

presented to the king, who made her his queen.

CURTAIN LECTURES.

Jerrold, in his preface to the later editions of _Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain

Lectures_, makes this curious statement:—

It has happened to the writer that two, or three, or ten, or twenty

gentlewomen have asked him ... _What could have made you think of Mrs.

Caudle? How could such a thing have entered any man’s mind?_ There are

subjects that seem like rain-drops to fall upon a man’s head, the head

itself having nothing to do with the matter.... And this was, no

doubt, the accidental cause of the literary sowing and

expansion—unfolding like a night-flower—of §Mrs. Caudle§.... The

writer, still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct

line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden household

music, these words—§Curtain Lectures§.

Nevertheless, this phrase may be traced back more than two centuries,

while the idea will be found in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, who says:—

Semper habet lites, alternaque jurgia lectus,

In quo nupta jacet: minimum dormitur in illo, &c.

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

Debates, alternate brawlings, ever were

I’ th’ marriage bed: there is no sleeping there.

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

Dryden in his translation of the same passage (published 1693)

introduces the phrase into the text:—

Besides, what endless brawls by wives are bred;

The Curtain-Lecture makes a mournful bed.

And Addison, in the _Tatler_, describing a luckless wight undergoing the

penalty of a nocturnal oration, says:—

I could not but admire his exemplary patience, and discovered, by his

whole behavior, that he was then lying under the discipline of a

_curtain lecture_.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

The metre, movement, and idea of Tennyson’s Charge of the Six Hundred at

Balaklava, are evidently derived from Michael Drayton’s _Battle of

Agincourt_, published in 1627. The first, middle and last stanzas of

Drayton’s poem run thus:—

1.

Faire stood the Wind for France

When we our Sayles advance,

Nor now to prove our chance

Longer will tarry;

But putting to the Mayne,

At _Kaux_, the Mouth of _Seyne_,

With all his Martiall Trayne,

Landed King Harry.

8.

They now to fight are gone,

Armour on armour shone,

Drumme now to Drumme did grone,

To heare was wonder:

That with the Cryes they make,

The very earth did shake,

Trumpet to Trumpet spake,

Thunder to Thunder.

15.

Upon Saint Crispin’s day

Fought was this Noble Fray,

Which Fame did not delay

To England to carry;

O when shall English Men

With such Acts fill a Pen,

Or England breed againe

Such a King §Harry§!

THE FAUST LEGENDS.

About the middle of the thirteenth century began to spread the notion of

formal written agreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his

exclusive property after a certain time, during which he was to help

them to all earthly good. This, curious to say, came with Christianity

from the East. The first instance was that of Theophilus, vicedominus of

the Bishop of Adana, a city of Cilicia, in the sixth century, whose fall

and conversion form the original of all the Faust legends. The story of

Theophilus may be found in various works, among them Ennemoser’s

_Universal History of Magic_, which was translated by William Howitt.

AIR CUSHIONS.

Ben Jonson, in the _Alchemist_, makes Sir Epicure Mammon, in his

expectation of acquiring the secret of the philosopher’s stone,

enumerate to Surly a list of anticipated luxuries. Among these

indulgences is this prophetic forecast of modern inflated India-rubber

beds and cushions:—

“I will have all my beds _blown up_, not _stuffed_;

Down is too hard.”

THE CAT IN THE ADAGE.

Lady Macbeth thus taunts her husband:—

Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem;

Letting _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_,

Like the poor cat i’ the adage?

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

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

The proverb is found among all nations. The Latin form of mediæval times

was as follows:—

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

The Germans say:—

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

machen.”

And the Scotch have it:—

“The cat would fain fish eat,

But she has no will to wet her feet.”

CORK LEGS.

A gentleman in Charleston conceived a very decided liking to a young

lady from Ireland, and was on the eve of popping the question, when he

was told by a friend that his dulcinea had a cork leg. It is difficult

to imagine the distress of the young Carolinian. He went to her father’s

house, knocked impatiently at the door, and when admitted to the fair

one’s presence, asked her if what he had heard respecting her were true.

“Yes, indeed, my dear Sir, it is true enough, but you have heard only

half of my misfortune. I have got two cork legs, having had the ill-luck

to be born in Cork.” This is the incident on which is founded Hart’s

afterpiece called _Perfection_.

THE POPE’S BULL AGAINST THE COMET.

When President Lincoln was first asked to issue a proclamation

abolishing slavery in the Southern States, he replied that such an act

would be as absurd as the Pope’s bull against the comet.

The comet referred to is Halley’s. Concerning its first authenticated

appearance, Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial Objects_, says:—

In 1456 it came with a tail 60° in length, and of a vivid brightness;

which splendid train affrighted all Europe, and spread consternation

in every quarter. To its malign influences were imputed the rapid

successes of Mahomet II., which then threatened all Christendom. The

general alarm was greatly aggravated by the conduct of Pope Calixtus

III., who, though otherwise a man of abilities, was but a poor

astronomer; for that pontiff daily ordered the church bells to be rung

at noontide, extra Ave Marias to be repeated, and a special protest

and excommunication was composed, exorcising equally the devil, the

Turks, and the comet.

SWAPPING HORSES.

The celebrated maxim of President Lincoln, “not to swap horses while

fording the stream,” was anticipated centuries ago by Cyrus the Elder,

King of Persia, in directing his troops to take up their several

stations, when he said, “When the contest is about to begin, there is no

longer time for any chariot to unyoke the horses for a change.”

WOODEN NUTMEGS.

Judge Haliburton, in that amusing book _The Clockmaker_, puts the

following in the mouth of Sam Slick:—

That remark seemed to grig him a little; he felt oneasy like, and

walked twice across the room, fifty fathoms deep in thought; at last

he said, “Which way are you from, Mr. Slick, this hitch?” “Why,” says

I, “I’ve been away up South a speculating in nutmegs.” “I hope,” says

the Professor, “they were a good article,—the real right down genuine

thing?” “No, mistake,” says I, “no mistake, Professor; they were all

prime, first chop; but why did you ax that ’ere question?” “Why,” says

he, “that eternal scoundrel, that Captain John Allspice of Nahant, he

used to trade to Charleston, and he carried a cargo once there of

fifty barrels of nutmegs. Well, he put half a bushel of good ones into

each end of the barrel, and the rest he filled up with wooden ones, so

like the real thing, no soul could tell the difference until _he bit

one with his teeth_, and that he never thought of doing until he was

first _bit himself_. Well, it’s been a standing joke with them

Southerners agin us ever since.”

TRADE UNIONS.

Trade unions are not of such recent origin as many people suppose. “I am

credibly informed,” wrote Mandeville, the philosophic author of the

_Fables of the Bees_, one hundred and fifty years ago, in his _Essay on

Charity and Charity Schools_, “that a parcel of footmen are arrived to

that height of insolence as to have entered into a society together, and

made laws by which they oblige themselves not to serve for less than

such a sum, nor carry burdens, or any bundle or parcel above a certain

weight not exceeding two or three pounds, with other regulations

directly opposite to the interest of those they serve, and altogether

destructive to the use they were designed for. If any of them be turned

away for strictly adhering to the orders of this honorable corporation,

he is taken care of till another service is provided for him; but there

is no money wanting at any time to commence and maintain a lawsuit

against any that shall pretend to strike or offer any other injury to

his gentleman footman, contrary to the statutes of their society. If

this be true, as I believe it is, and they are suffered to go on in

consulting and providing for their own ease and conveniency any further,

we may expect quickly to see the French comedy ‘Le Maitre le Valet’

acted in good earnest in most families; while, if not redressed in a

little time, and these footmen increase their company to the number it

is possible they may, as well as assemble when they please with

impunity, it will be in their power to make a tragedy of it whenever

they have a mind to.”

CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

On page 454 of Senator Wilson’s _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in

America_, he says (of a speech of the late Mr. Giddings): “He referred

to the Treaty of Indian Springs, by which, after paying the slaveholders

of Georgia the sum of $109,000 for slaves who had escaped to Florida, it

added the sum of $141,000 as compensation demanded for the offspring

which the females would have borne to their masters had they remained in

bondage; and Congress actually paid that sum for children who were never

born, but who might have been if their parents had remained faithful

slaves.”

There is no clearer case of the payment of “consequential damages” in

English or American history than this.

THE ORIGINAL SHYLOCK.

Gregory Leti, in his biography of Sextus V., tells us that Paul Secchi,

a Venetian merchant, having learned by private advices that Admiral

Francis Blake had conquered St. Domingo, communicated the news to a

Jewish merchant named Sampson Ceneda. The latter was so confident that

the information was false, that, after repeated protestations, he said,

“I bet a pound of my flesh that the report is untrue.” “And I lay a

thousand scudi against it,” rejoined the Christian, who caused a bond to

be drawn to the effect that in case the report should prove untrue, then

the Christian merchant, Signor Paul Secchi, is bound to pay the Jewish

merchant the sum of 1000 scudi, and on the other hand, if the truth of

the news be confirmed, the Christian merchant, Signor Paul Secchi, is

justified and empowered to cut with his own hand, with a well-sharpened

knife, a pound of the Jew’s fair flesh, of that part of the body it

might please him. When the news proved true, the Christian insisted on

his bond, but the governor, having got wind of the affair, reported it

to the Pope, who condemned both Jew and Christian to the galleys, from

which they could only be ransomed by paying a fine of double the amount

of the wager.

Shakspeare reverses the order, and makes the Jew usurer demand the pound

of flesh from the Christian merchant.

EXCOMMUNICATION.

The excommunication of the Roman Catholic Church, exactly described by

anticipation in Cæsar’s account of their predecessors, the Heathen

Druids, will be found in Cæsar, _de Bello Gallico_, Book VI. Chap, iii.,

the passage beginning “Si quis aut privatus aut publicus,” and ending

“Neque honos ullus communicatur.”

They decree rewards and punishments, and if any one refuses to submit

to their sentence, whether magistrate or private man, they interdict

him the sacrifices. This is the greatest punishment that can be

inflicted among the Gauls; because such as are under this prohibition

are considered as impious and wicked; all men shun them, and decline

their conversation and fellowship, lest they should suffer from the

contagion of their misfortunes. They can neither have recourse to the

law for justice, nor are capable of any public office.

NAPOLEON I.

Compare the character and fall of Bonaparte with that of the king of

Babylon as described in the remarkable language of the prophet Isaiah,

chapter xiv., verses 4–22.

THE FALLS OF LANARK.

The following lines in an album formerly kept at the inn at Lanark

evidently suggested to Southey his playful verses on _The Cataract of

Lodore_:—

What fools are mankind,

And how strangely inclined

To come from all places

With horses and chaises,

By day and by dark,

To the Falls of Lanark!

For, good people, after all,

What is a waterfall?

It comes roaring and grumbling,

And leaping and tumbling,

And hopping and skipping,

And foaming and dripping,

And struggling and toiling,

And bubbling and boiling,

And beating and jumping,

And bellowing and thumping.

I have much more to say upon

Both Linn and Bonniton;

But the trunks are tied on,

And I must be gone.

In the varied music of Schiller’s _Song of the Bell_ may be found the

same style:—

Der Mann muß hinaus The man must be out

Ins feindliche Leben, In hostile life toiling,

Muß wirken und streben Be struggling and moiling,

Und pflanzen und schaffen, And planting, obtaining,

Erlisten, erraffen, Devising and gaining,

Muß wetten und wagen, And daring, enduring,

Das Glück zu erjagen. So fortune securing.

TURGOT’S EPIGRAPH ON FRANKLIN.

Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.

This inscription, the highest compliment ever paid to the American

philosopher and statesman, and originally ascribed to Condorcet and

Mirabeau, was written by Turgot, Louis XVI.’s minister and

controller-general of finance, and first appeared in the correspondence

of Grimm and Diderot, April, 1778. It is, however, merely a modification

of a line in the _Anti-Lucretius of_ Cardinal de Polignac, lib. i., v.

37:—

Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phœboque sagittas,

which is in turn traced to the _Astronomicon_ of Marcus Manilius, a poet

of the Augustan age, who says of Epicurus, lib. i. v. 104,—

Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, viresque Tonanti.

Taking the laurel from the brow of Epicurus to place it upon the head of

Franklin is not so inappropriate, when we recall the sketch of the

former by Lucretius _illustrans commoda vitæ_.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Among those who sympathized most deeply with the oppressed inhabitants

of New England, and who were earliest to express indignation at the

outrages of British tyranny, were the militia-officers of North

Carolina, most of whom were Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish nativity. On

the 20th of May, 1775, the delegates of the Mecklenburg convention,

“after sitting in the court-house all night, neither sleepy, hungry, nor

fatigued, and after discussing every paragraph,” unanimously passed the

following resolutions. It will be observed that this memorable

Declaration of Independence contains many of the ideas, and some of the

very phrases and forms of expression, afterwards employed by Mr.

Jefferson, and incorporated in his draft of that great national document

whose adoption, on the 4th of July, 1776, gave birth to a nation of

freemen. The more striking similarities are here shown in Italics:—

§Resolved§, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any

way, form, or manner countenanced, the unchartered and dangerous

invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this

country, to America, and to the _inherent and inalienable rights_[36] of

Man.

Footnote 36:

The same expression will be found in the original draft of Mr.

Jefferson. Congress changed the words “inherent and inalienable” to

“certain inalienable.”

§Resolved§, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby

_dissolve the political bands which have connected_ us to the mother

country, and hereby _absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the

British Crown, and abjure all political connection_, contract, or

association with that Nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights

and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at

Lexington.

§Resolved§, That we do hereby _declare ourselves a free and independent

people; are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing

association_, under the control of no power other than that of §our

God§, and the general Government of the Congress; _to the maintenance of

which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual

co-operation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor_.

§Resolved§, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no

law or legal officer, civil or military, within this country, we do

hereby ordain and adopt as a rule of life all, each, and every of our

former laws; wherein, nevertheless, the Crown of Great Britain never can

be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authorities

therein.

§Resolved§, That it is further decreed that all, each, and every

military officer in this county is hereby reinstated in his former

command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations; and

that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil

officer, viz.: a Justice of the Peace in the character of a

“Committee-man,” to issue process, hear and determine all matters of

controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace,

union, and harmony in said county; and to use every exertion to spread

the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more

general and organized government be established in the Province.

After discussing the foregoing resolves, and arranging by-laws and

regulations for the government of a Standing Committee of Public Safety,

who were selected from their delegates, the whole proceedings were

unanimously adopted and signed. A select committee was then appointed to

draw up a more full and definite statement of grievances, and a more

formal Declaration of Independence. The delegation then adjourned about

two o’clock §A.M.§

THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.

The recent political organization under this odd title, which presented

one of the most singular features that has yet diversified American

history, has its archetype in the Church whose progress in this country

it was designed to oppose. In Italy there was formerly a strange order

of monks calling themselves _Fratres Ignorantiæ_, “Brothers of

Ignorance.” They used to bind themselves by oath not to understand nor

to learn any thing, and answered all questions by saying, _Nescio_, “I

do not know.” Their first proposition was, “Though you do not understand

the words you speak, yet the Holy Ghost understands them, and the devil

flees.” In opposing mental acquirements, they argued thus:—“Suppose this

friar studies and becomes a learned man, the consequence will be that he

will want to become our superior: therefore, put the sack around his

neck, and let him go begging from house to house, in town and country.”

THE ORIGINAL OF BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.

_The Isle of Man, or the Legal Proceedings in Manshire against Sin,

wherein, by way of a continual Allegory, the chief malefactors

disturbing both Church and Commonwealth are detected and attached, with

their arraignment and judicial trial, according to the laws of England;

the spiritual use thereof, with an apology for the manner of handling

most necessary to be first read, for direction in the right use of the

allegory. By the Rev. Richard Bernard._

An allegory with the above title, originally published more than two

hundred years ago, was reprinted in Bristol, England, in 1803. In a note

to this edition, addressed to the reader, the editor states that the

work is prized as well on account of the ingenuity of the performance as

the probability of its having suggested to Mr. John Bunyan the first

idea of his Pilgrim’s Progress, and of his Holy War, which was intimated

on a leaf facing the title-page, by the late Rev. Mr. Toplady.

The editor says, “That Bunyan had seen the book may be inferred from its

extensive circulation, for in one year only after its first publication

it ran through seven editions.” He then proceeds to the internal

evidence, and points out a supposed similarity between the characters in

the two works, as between Wilful Will of the one and Will-be-Will of the

other; Mr. Worldly Wiseman of Bunyan and Sir Worldly Wise of Bernard;

Soul’s Town of Bernard and Bunyan’s Town of Man’s Soul, &c.

That the book has no very high order of genius to commend it is evident

from the fact that it has passed into comparative obscurity. The world

does not suffer the works of true prophets to die. Still, there is

enough in it to render it worthy of being held in remembrance; and,

antedating Bunyan as it does, passing through seven editions immediately

after its first publication, presenting some striking analogies with the

great master of allegory, and sinking into obscurity before the brighter

and more enduring light of the Bedford tinker, its author deserves

honorable mention for his attempt to present religious truth in a

striking and impressive form at a period when such attempts were rare.

Southey, in his _Commonplace Book_, gives a long quotation from

_Lucian’s Hermotimus_, to show how Bunyan was anticipated, in the main

idea of his allegory, by a Greek writer, as far back as the second

century.

Another claimant for this Telemachus of Protestant religious literature

has recently been brought to light by Catherine Isabella Curt, who has

just published in London a translation of an old French manuscript in

the British Museum, which is almost word for word the Pilgrim’s

Progress. The manuscript is the work of a clergyman, G de Grideville,

who lived in the fifteenth century. Its title, in Norman English, is

_Pylgremage of the Sowle_. The printer, Caxton, who occupied the same

position in London as the Etiennes of Paris, published in 1483 a

translation of this manuscript, of which the authenticity appears

incontestable. It would seem, therefore, that the credit of this

celebrated book belongs to France, although France hitherto has shown

less appreciation of the original than England has bestowed on the copy.

ROBINSON CRUSOE: WHO WROTE IT?

Disraeli, in his ever-charming _Curiosities of Literature_, expresses

boldly the opinion that “no one had, or perhaps could have, converted

the history of Selkirk into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe

himself.” So have we all been accustomed to believe, from those

careless, happy days of boyhood when we pored intently over the

entrancing pages of “Robinson Crusoe” and wished that we also could have

a desert island, a summer bower, and a winter-cave retreat, as well as

he. But there is, alas! some slight ground at least for believing that

De Foe _did not write_ that immortal tale, or, at all events, the better

portion of it, viz., the first part or volume of the work. In Sir H.

Ellis’s _Letters of Eminent Literary Men_ (Camden Soc. Pub. 1843, vol.

23), p. 420, Letter 137 is from “Daniel De Foe to the Earl of Halifax,

engaging himself to his lordship as a political writer.” In a note by

the editor a curious anecdote is given, quoted from “a volume of

Memoranda in the handwriting of Thomas Warton, poet-laureate, preserved

in the British Museum,” in relation to the actual authorship of the

“Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” The extract is as follows:—

“Mem. July 10, 1774.—In the year 1759, I was told by the Rev. Mr.

Hollaway, rector of Middleton Stoney, in Oxfordshire, then about seventy

years old, and in the early part of his life chaplain to Lord

Sunderland, that he had often heard Lord Sunderland say that Lord

Oxford, while prisoner in the Tower of London, wrote the first volume of

the History of Robinson Crusoe, merely as an amusement under

confinement, and gave it to Daniel De Foe, who frequently visited Lord

Oxford in the Tower and was one of his pamphlet-writers; that De Foe, by

Lord Oxford’s permission, printed it as his own, and, encouraged by its

extraordinary success, added himself the second volume, the inferiority

of which is generally acknowledged. Mr. Holloway also told me, from Lord

Sunderland, that Lord Oxford dictated some parts of the manuscript to De

Foe. Mr Hollaway,”—Warton adds,—“was a grave, conscientious clergyman,

not vain of telling anecdotes, very learned, particularly a good

Orientalist, author of some theological tracts, bred at Eton School, and

a Master of Arts of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He used to say that

‘Robinson Crusoe at its first publication, and for some time afterward,

was universally received and credited as a genuine history. A fictitious

narrative of this sort was then a new thing.’”

Besides, it may be added, the _real_ and somewhat similar circumstances

of Alexander Selkirk’s solitary abode of four years and four months on

the island of Juan Fernandez, had, only a few years previously, been the

subject of general conversation, and had therefore prepared the public

mind for the possibility, if not the probability, of such adventures.

PROVERB MISASCRIBED TO DEFOE.

In an article on the writings of Daniel Defoe, in a late number of the

_Edinburgh Review_, the critic refers to the _True-Born Englishman_, the

opening quatrain of which is quoted as being “all that will ever be

remembered of the poem.”

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,

The devil is sure to build a chapel there;

And ’twill be found, upon examination,

The latter has the largest congregation.

A recent number of Chambers’s _Papers for the People_ also contains an

article on Defoe, in which the same lines are quoted as having since

grown into a proverb. It is evident that the two critics believed the

idea to be original with Defoe. But they were both in error; for in an

old tract, entitled _The Vineyarde of Vertue_, printed in 1591,

seventy-seven years before Defoe was born, may be found the following

sentence:—

It is oftentimes seene, that as God hath his Churche, so will the

Deuill have a Chappell.

It was also used before Defoe’s time by George Herbert and Robert

Burton. The former says, in his _Jacula Prudentum_, “No sooner is a

temple built to God, but the Devil builds a chapel hard by;” and the

latter, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, thus expresses it: “Where God

hath a Temple the Devil will have a Chapel.” It is evident that Defoe

only versified a well-known proverb of his day.

THE USE OF LANGUAGE.

To Talleyrand has generally been attributed the authorship of the maxim

that “the use of language is to conceal our thoughts.” (La parole a été

donnée à l’homme pour aider à cacher sa pensée.)

In Pycroft’s _Ways and Words of Men of Letters_, a quotation is made

from an article on _The Use of Language_, published in a periodical

called the _Bee_, under date of October 20, 1759, which reads as

follows: “He who best knows how to conceal his necessity and desires is

the most likely person to find redress; and _the true use of speech is

not so much to express our wants as to conceal them_.”

Nearly a century before this, Dr. South preached a sermon in Westminster

Abbey, on _The Wisdom of the World_, in which he said, “Men speak with

designs of mischief, and therefore they speak in the dark. In short,

this seems to be the true inward judgment of all our politic sages, that

speech was given to the ordinary sort of men whereby to communicate

their mind, _but to wise men whereby to conceal it_.”

SCANDINAVIAN SKULL CUPS.

What a pretty tale was slaughtered when Grenville Piggot pointed out, in

his _Manual of Scandinavian Mythology_, the blundering translation of

the passage in an old Scandinavian poem relating to the occupation of

the blest in the halls of Valhalla, the Northern paradise! “Soon shall

we drink out of the curved horns of the head,” are the words in the

death-song of Regner Lodbrog; meaning by this violent figure to say that

they would imbibe their liquor out of cups formed from the crooked horns

of animals. The first translators, however, not seeing their way

clearly, rendered the passage, “Soon shall we drink out of the _skulls

of our enemies_;” and to this strange banqueting there are allusions

without end to be met with in our literature. Peter Pindar, for example,

once said that the booksellers, like the heroes of Valhalla, drank their

wine out of the skulls of authors.

GREAT LITERARY PLAGIARISM.

The _London Athenæum_ asserts that Paley’s Natural Theology is copied

from a series of papers which appeared about the end of the seventeenth

century, in the _Leipsic Transactions_, written by a Dutch philosopher

named Nieuwentyt. It is extraordinary that this discovery was not made

before, inasmuch as the papers, after having been published at Amsterdam

about the year 1700, were afterwards translated into English by Mr.

Chamberlayne, and published by Longman & Co., in 1818, about fifteen

years after Paley’s Natural Theology appeared. As Paley quotes Dr.

Nieuwentyt from the _Leipsic Transactions_, he, of course, must have

known and perused them. Parallel passages are printed side by side in

the _Athenæum_, for the purpose of proving the assertion.

OLD BALLADS.

It was not the more polished author of Ivanhoe who gave us the unfading

picture of the Black Knight, but he who sang of

—a stranger knight whom no man knewe,

He wan the prize eche daye.

His acton it was all of blacke,

His hewberke, and his sheelde,

Ne no man wist whence he did come,

Ne no man knewe where he did gone,

When they came from the feelde.

It was not the “thousand-souled Shakspeare” who gave birth to the story

of the pound of flesh; for Shylock is no other than _Gernutus the Jew of

Venice_. We subjoin two stanzas from Percy’s Reliques:—

But we will have a merry jest

For to be talkéd long:

You shall make me a bond (quoth he)

That shall be large and strong.

* * * * *

The bloody Jew now ready is,

With whetted blade in hand;

To spoil the blood of innocent

By forfeit of his bond.

Even the tragedy of Lear was set to the tune of “When flying Fame”

before it was known to the stage. Nor will it be unjust to the memory of

the good and gifted Goldsmith to say that the Old Harper sang:—

Thus every day I fast and pray,

And ever will doe till I dye;

And gett me to some secrett place,

For soe did hee, and soe will I,—

before the gentle Angelina thought of saying:—

And there forlorn, despairing hid,

I’ll lay me down and die:

’Twas so for me that Edwin did,

And so for him will I.

THE WANDERING JEW.

The success of _Le Juif Errant_ of M. Sue, when first published, arose

doubtless from two causes: the deep hold upon the popular heart which

the legend of the lonely wanderer naturally acquired, and the reaction

against papacy at that period. The efforts of the church, and

particularly of the Society of Jesus, against which it was specially

directed, to either suppress it or neutralize its effects, tended the

more to extend its influence. The legend of a wanderer, pursued by some

fate or power above, suffering, solitary and deathless, is as old as the

human race. It takes a new form with every step in human progress,

adapting itself to the character of the period and place where it

reappears. It belongs to the early East, notably the Hindoo legendary

literature, to Greece and Rome, and to Christendom, taking shape rather

from the religious than the ethical elements of character. The Wandering

Jew of Christendom varies with times and places, as his name also

varies. He is Salathiel, Ahasuerus, Cartaphilus, Theudas, Zerib Bar

Elia, Isbal, Michob-Ader, Bultadœus, Isaac Laquedon or something else,

as circumstances determine. The German designation—the Everlasting Jew,

_der ewige Jude_—is more specifically significant really than that of

other languages, in most of which it is “wandering.”

The weird figure, wandering in fulfillment of his doom in the

Carpathians, or halting at Nürnberg or Bamberg, or going in and out

among the peasantry of Brittany or Wales, is an attractive subject: a

vague, shadowy form; mortal and yet immortal; typical at once of man’s

liability to death, and of his everlasting existence. He has the

passions and anxieties and sorrows of manhood, and is endowed with a

function which places him beyond the operations of Providence. From the

earliest notice of this hero, which occurs in the Chronicles of the

Abbey of St. Albans, he appears in numerous and manifold literary

forms—drama, lyric, ballad, historical poem, legend, novel, study,

essay, chronicle, biography, myth and paragraph, to the extent of

perhaps a hundred volumes. The legends of most of these agree in

representing the Jew as a wanderer since the day of the crucifixion,

sometimes repentant and sometimes defiant, but always going. From this

general voice Dr. Croly, in his _Salathiel_, upon a true artistic

principle, departs, and makes his doomed one live only the usual period

of man’s life. His Jew is repentant and anxious to die, and dies in due

season. The Jew of M. Eubule-Evans, in the _Curse of Immortality_, also

is repentant, but, pursued by implacable vengeance of the Almighty, he

refuses, in his morbid pride, to purchase the repose of death at the

price of self-abasement; but at last reaches contrition through the

softening influence of human love, repents and dies.

With similar general characteristics the wanderer of M. Sue’s powerful

melodramatic story seeks death in every clime and form: but lives on,

wanders on, and toils to achieve human ends, until the close of the

romance, when the hero sets out anew. Our readers are doubtless familiar

with the story—the scattered heirs of a fortune of two million francs to

be divided among them upon condition of their assembling at a given hour

in a given room in Paris; and the machinations of the wily Jesuit Rodin,

whose end was to secure the money for his own society.

The Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans, already referred to, report

the following circumstantial details:—

In the year 1228, a certain archbishop of Armenia came on a pilgrimage

to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places

in this kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of

recommendation from his Holiness the Pope to the religious men and

prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and

entertain him with due reverence and honor. On his arrival, he came to

St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and

monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained

some days to rest himself and his followers. In the course of

conversation by means of their interpreters, he made many inquiries

relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and

told many strange things concerning the countries of the East. In the

course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard

anything of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who,

when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to him, and who is still

alive, in evidence to the Christian faith; in reply to which a knight in

his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, “My

Lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the

western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the

archbishop in Armenia, and he has often seen and held converse with

him.” He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the

said Joseph, to which he replied, “At the time of the suffering of Jesus

Christ, he was seized by the Jews and led into the hall of judgment,

before Pilate, the governor, that he might be judged by him on the

accusation of the Jews; and Pilate finding no cause for adjudging him to

death, said to them, ‘Take him and judge him according to your law;’ the

shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released

unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When,

therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door,

Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall, in Pilate’s service, as Jesus was

going out of the door, impiously struck him on the back with his hand,

and said in mockery, ‘Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter?’

and Jesus looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, ‘I

am going and you will wait till I return.’ And according as our Lord

said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return. At the time of our

Lord’s suffering he was thirty years old, and when he attains the age of

a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our

Lord suffered. After Christ’s death, when the Catholic faith gained

ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the

apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other division

of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst

the bishops and other prelates of the church; he is a man of holy

conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and circumspect in his

behavior, for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the

bishops and religious men, and then he tells of the events of old times,

and of those which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our

Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, those who rose

with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also

tells of the creed of the apostles, and of their separation and

preaching. And all this he relates without smiling or levity of

conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of

God; always looking forward with fear to the coming of Jesus Christ,

lest at the last judgment he should find him in anger, whom, when on his

way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers come to him

from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and

conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all

doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts

that are offered to him, being content with slight food and clothing.”

Of the myths of the Middle Ages, none is more striking than that of the

Wandering Jew; indeed it is so well calculated to arrest the attention

and to excite the imagination, that it is remarkable that we should find

an interval of three centuries between its first introduction into

Europe by Matthew Paris and Philip Mouskes, and its general acceptance

in the sixteenth century. Of the romances of Eugéne Sue and Dr. Croly,

founded upon the legend, the less said the better. The original legend

is so noble in its severe simplicity that none but a master mind could

develop it with any chance of success. Nor have the poetical attempts

upon the story fared better. It was reserved for the pencil of Gustave

Doré to treat it with the originality it merited, and in a series of

wood-cuts to produce at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d’œuvre of

art.

Curious Books.

ODD TITLES OF OLD BOOKS,

_Mostly Published in the time of Cromwell_.

_A Fan to drive away Flies_: a theological treatise on Purgatory.

_A most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God’s Saints to Smell at._

_A Pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fry._

_A Proper Project to Startle Fools: Printed in a Land where Self’s cry’d

up and Zeal’s cry’d down._

_A Reaping-Hook, well tempered, for the Stubborn Ears of the coming

Crop; or, Biscuit baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for

the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet

Swallows of Salvation._

_A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed out of a Hole in the

Wall of an Earthly Vessel, known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish_

(a Quaker who had been imprisoned).

_A Shot aimed at the Devil’s Head-Quarters through the Tube of the

Cannon of the Covenant._

_Crumbs of Comfort for the Chickens of the Covenant._

_Eggs of Charity, layed by the Chickens of the Covenant, and boiled with

the Water of Divine Love. Take Ye and eat._

_High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness._

_Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches._

_Matches lighted by the Divine Fire._

_Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin, or the Seven Penitential Psalms

of the Princely Prophet David; whereunto are also added, William Humius’

Handful of Honeysuckles, and Divers Godly and Pithy Ditties, now newly

augmented._

_Spiritual Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments

for their Souls’ Nourishment_: a catechism.

_The Bank of Faith._

_The Christian Sodality; or, Catholic Hive of Bees, sucking the Honey of

the Churches’ Prayer from the Blossoms of the Word of God, blowne out of

the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service throughout the yeare.

Collected by the Puny Bee of all the Hive not worthy to be named

otherwise than by these Elements of his Name, F. P._

_The Gun of Penitence._

_The Innocent Love; or, the Holy Knight_: a description of the ardors of

a saint for the Virgin.

_The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary_; or a collection of passages from

the fathers.

_The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit._

_The Snuffers of Divine Love._

_The Sound of the Trumpet_: a work on the day of judgment.

_The Spiritual Mustard Pot, to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion._

_The Three Daughters of Job_: a treatise on patience, fortitude, and

pain.

_Tobacco battered, and the Pipes shattered about their Ears that idly

idolize so loathsome a Vanity, by a Volley of holy shot thundered from

Mount Helicon_: a poem against the use of tobacco, by Joshua Sylvester.

_Vox Cœlis; or, Newes from Heaven: being imaginary conversations there

between Henry VIII., Edward VI., Prince Henrie, and others._

THE MOST CURIOUS BOOK IN THE WORLD.

The most singular bibliographic curiosity is that which belonged to the

family of the Prince de Ligne, and is now in France. It is entitled

_Liber Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, cum Characteribus Nulla

Materia Compositis_. This book is neither written nor printed! The whole

letters of the text are cut out of each folio upon the finest vellum;

and, being interleaved with blue paper, it is read as easily as the best

print. The labor and patience bestowed in its completion must have been

excessive, especially when the precision and minuteness of the letters

are considered. The general execution, in every respect, is indeed

admirable; and the vellum is of the most delicate and costly kind.

Rodolphus II. of Germany offered for it, in 1640, eleven thousand

ducats, which was probably equal to sixty thousand at this day. The most

remarkable circumstance connected with this literary treasure is, that

it bears the royal arms of England, but it cannot be traced to have ever

been in that country.

SILVER BOOK.

In the Library of Upsal, in Sweden, there is preserved a translation of

the Four Gospels, printed with metal types upon violet-colored vellum.

The letters are silver, and hence it has received the name of _Codex

Argenteus_. The initial letters are in gold. It is supposed that the

whole was printed in the same manner as bookbinders letter the titles of

books on the back. It was a very near approach to the discovery of the

art of printing; but it is not known how old it is.

BOOK AMATEURS.

It was the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Vallière, who made the

following classification:—

A _Bibliognoste_ is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in

editions; when and where printed; the presses whence issued; and all the

minutiæ of a book.

A _Bibliographe_ is a describer of books and other literary

arrangements.

A _Bibliomane_ is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster

than he buys, cock-brained and purse-heavy.

A _Bibliophile_, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who

appears to read them for his own pleasure.

A _Bibliotaphe_ buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing

them in glass cases.

Literariana.

THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS.

“Junius” was the name or signature of a writer who published, at

intervals between 1769 and 1772, a series of political papers on the

leading questions and men of that day. They appeared in the newspaper

called the _Public Advertiser_, and attracted immense attention, partly

from the high position of the characters assailed, (among whom was

George III. himself,) and still more from their brilliancy of style,

their boldness of tone, and the tremendous severity of the invectives

employed in them. The letters are still models of that species of

writing,—though it has since risen to such a point of excellence

generally as would greatly weaken the force of any similar phenomena if

appearing in our day. However, from the monarch to the meanest of his

subjects, all men were impressed deeply at the time by the letters of

Junius, the mystery attending their authorship adding largely to their

influence. It was a mystery at the moment, and remains a puzzle still.

Not even the publisher, Woodfall, knew who his correspondent was, or, at

least, not certainly. Yet all the world felt the letters to be the work

of no common man. Their most remarkable feature, indeed, was the

intimate familiarity with high people and official life which they so

clearly evinced. “A traitor in the camp!” was the cry of the leading

statesmen of the period. Hence it occurred that almost every person of

talent and eminence then living fell, or has since fallen, more or less

under the suspicion of being Junius. But his own words to Woodfall have

as yet proved true:—“It is not in the nature of things that you or

anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known.” He adds that

he never will do so. “I am the sole depository of my secret, and it

shall die with me.” If it has not died with him, he at least has gone to

the grave without its divulgement by himself. But there may still be

circumstantial evidence sufficient to betray him, in despite of all his

secretive care.

In Rush’s _Residence at the Court of London_ is preserved an anecdote

relating to the authorship of Junius, of interest and apparent

importance to the investigators of this vexed question. It is as

follows:—

Mr. Canning related an anecdote pertinent to the topic, derived from the

present king when Prince of Wales. It was to the following effect. The

late king was in the habit of going to the theatre once a week at the

time Junius’s Letters were appearing, and had a page in his service of

the name of Ramus. This page always brought the play-bill in to the king

at teatime, on the evenings when he went. On the evening before Sir

Philip Francis sailed for India, Ramus handed to the king, at the same

time when delivering the play-bill, a note from Garrick to Ramus, in

which the former stated that there would be no more letters from Junius.

This was found to be the very night on which Junius addressed his

laconic note to Garrick, threatening him with vengeance. Sir Philip did

embark for India next morning, and in point of fact the letters ceased

to appear from that very day. The anecdote added that there lived with

Sir Philip at the time a relation of Ramus, who sailed in the morning

with him. The whole narrative excited much attention, and was new to

most of the company. The first impression it made was, not only that it

went far towards showing, by proof almost direct, that Sir Philip

Francis was the author, but that Garrick must have been in the secret.

The _Bengal Hurkaru_, a Calcutta paper, dated Feb. 19, 1855, contains

the following paragraph, which is the more interesting when taken in

conjunction with several facts connected with Francis’s residence there,

as a member of the council, for several years (1774–80).

“The _Englishman_ (a military newspaper published in Calcutta) states

that there is a gentleman in Calcutta who possesses ‘an original

document, the publication of which would forever set at rest the _vexata

quæstio_ as to the authorship of the _Letters of Junius_.’ The document

which we have seen is what our cotemporary describes it to be, and bears

three signatures: that of ‘Chatham,’ on the right-hand side of the

paper; and on the left, those of Dr. Wilmot, and J. Dunning, afterwards

Lord Ashburton. The paper, the ink, and the writing all induce us to

believe that the document is genuine; and we understand that the

gentleman in whose possession it is has other documentary evidence

corroborative of this, which still further tends to clear up the riddle

which so many have attempted to read with small success.”

The incident related by Mr. Canning acquires additional value and

significance when considered in connection with the evidence in favor of

Francis, so concisely drawn up by Macaulay in his Essay on the

impeachment of Warren Hastings. After an introductory allusion to the

disputed authorship, Macaulay goes on to say:—

The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a

civil, nay, in a criminal, proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the

very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the

position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the

most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first,

that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of

State’s office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the

business of the War Office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770,

attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches,

particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly

resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary

at War; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord

Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the Secretary of State’s

office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the War Office. He repeatedly

mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham;

and some of those speeches were actually printed from his notes. He

resigned his clerkship at the War Office from resentment at the

appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first

introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of

which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis.

We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other

person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is

an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.

The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of

Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we

disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the

acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the

anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all events, is one

which may be urged with at least equal force against every claimant that

has ever been mentioned, with the single exception of Burke, who

certainly was not Junius. And what conclusion, after all, can be drawn

from mere inferiority? Every writer must produce his best work; and the

interval between his best and his second-best work may be very wide

indeed. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are more

decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or

four of Corneille’s tragedies to the rest; than three or four of Ben

Jonson’s comedies to the rest; than the Pilgrim’s Progress to the other

works of Bunyan; than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay,

it is certain that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a

most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which bear the

signature of Junius,—the letter to the king and the letters to Horne

Tooke have little in common except the asperity; and asperity was an

ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of

Francis.

Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was

Junius is the moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult

from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been

written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to

form a tolerably correct notion of his character. He was clearly a man

not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity,—a man whose vices were

not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest

degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and prone to

the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. “Doest thou

well to be angry?” was the question asked in old time of the Hebrew

prophet. And he answered, “I do well.” This was evidently the temper of

Junius; and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which

disgraces several of his letters. No man is so merciless as he who,

under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties.

It may be added, that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by

common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While

attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the

laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old

institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the cause of

Old Sarum with fervor, and contemptuously told the capitalists of

Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and

become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe,

might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip

Francis.

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been

willing at that time to leave the country which had been so powerfully

stirred by his eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That party

which he clearly preferred to every other, the party of George

Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief, and Lord

Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to the ministerial benches.

The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had gone down. Every

faction must have been an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on

domestic affairs separated him from the Ministry, his opinions on

colonial affairs from the Opposition. Under such circumstances, he had

thrown down his pen in misanthropic despair. His farewell letter to

Woodfall bears date January 19, 1773. In that letter he declared that he

must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the cause and

the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who

would act steadily together on any question. “But it is all alike,” he

added, “vile and contemptible. You have never flinched, that I know of;

and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity.” These were the

last words of Junius. Soon afterwards Sir Philip Francis started on his

voyage to Bengal.

One of the ablest articles in favor of Lord Chatham may be found in

Hogg’s _Instructor_, already quoted from. The writer sums up his

evidence in a masterly manner, and almost conclusively, were it not that

he still leaves, like others who have preceded him, a large space for an

entering wedge. Nay, more: he even divides the palm, and, though he

gives the great William Pitt the chief glory, he intimates that Francis

not only wrote some of the epistles, but originated “the idea of so

operating on the public mind.” He says in his closing remarks, in answer

to the question, “Had Sir Philip Francis no share in the Junian

Letters?” “He certainly was privy, we imagine, to the _whole business_,

and, indeed, very probably wrote some of the earlier and less important

epistles. He had been private secretary to Chatham at one time, and was

his friend, or rather idolizing follower, through life. But he was not

Junius. He may even have begun the epistolary series, and may deserve

the credit, perhaps, of having suggested the idea of so operating on the

public mind. But still he was not _Nominis Umbra_ himself. In answering

the queries of Lord Campbell, Lady Francis, while owning that Sir Philip

never called himself Junius to her, assumes nevertheless that he was

that mystic being, but adds that after he had begun the letters a ‘new

and powerful ally’ came to his assistance. The whole mystery is here

laid bare. Lord Chatham is clearly the ally meant; and the testimony of

Lady Francis, therefore, founded on the revelations of her husband, may

be held as fully establishing our present hypothesis.”

Yet Francis and Chatham both “died and left no sign:” the question is

therefore still open to discussion, and, as a late writer has remarked,

it is not a mere question of curiosity. He recommends it to the study of

every barrister who wishes to make himself acquainted with the _Theory

of Evidence_. There is scarcely a claim that has been put forward as

yet, which he will not find worthy of his attention, especially when he

considers the _remarkable coincidences_ which have generally been the

occasion of their being brought forward. He adds that he has during the

last thirty years successively admitted the claims of five or six of the

candidates, but that now he does not believe in one of them.

GRAY’S ELEGY.

Never the verse approve and hold as good

Till many a day and many a blot has wrought

The polished work, and chastened every thought

By tenfold labor to perfection brought.—§Horace.§

The original MS. of this immortal poem was lately sold at auction in

London. At a former sale (1845) it was purchased, together with the

“Odes,” by a Mr. Penn. He gave $500 for the Elegy alone. He was proud,

says the _London Athenæum_, of his purchase,—so proud, indeed, that

binders were employed to inlay them on fine paper, bind them up in

volumes of richly-tooled olive morocco with silk linings, and finally

enclose each volume in a case of plain purple morocco. The order was

carefully carried out, and the volumes were deposited at Stoke Pogis, in

the great house adjoining the grave of Gray. The MS. of the Elegy is

full of verbal alterations: it is the only copy known to exist, and is

evidently Gray’s first grouping together of the stanzas as a whole. As

the Elegy is known and admired by almost every one conversant with the

English language, we select some of the verses, to show the alterations

made by the author. The established text is printed in Roman type, the

MS. readings as originally written, in Italics:—

Of such as wandering near her secret bower

_stray too_

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep

_village_

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

_Forever sleep; the breezy call of_

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn

_Or Chanticleer so shrill_,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share

_coming_

_doubtful_

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

_homely_

Their homely joys

_rustic_

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault

_Forgive, ye proud, th’ involuntary fault_

Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust

_awake_

Chill penury repress’d their noble rage

_had damp’d_

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

_Tully_

Some Cromwell

_Cæsar_

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined

_struggling_

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way

_silent_

Even in our ashes live their wonted fires

_And buried ashes glow with social_

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

_With hasty footsteps brush_

There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech

_Oft_ _hoary_

_spreading_

Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn

_With gestures quaint_

Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove

_fond conceits, he wont to_

Along the heath, and near his favorite tree

_By the heath side_

The next, with dirges due, in sad array

_meet_

Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn

_Wrote_ _that_

_Carved_

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere

_heart_

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode

_Nor seek to draw them_

There they alike in trembling hope repose

_His frailties there_

In the original manuscript copy, after the eighteenth stanza, are the

four following verses, which were evidently intended to complete the

poem, but the idea of the hoary-headed swain occurring to the author, he

rejected them:—

The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,

Exalt the brave and idolize success;

But more to innocence their safety owe,

Than power or genius ere conspired to bless.

And thou who, mindful of the unhonored dead,

Dost in these notes their artless tale relate;

By night and lonely contemplation led

To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:

Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around

Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease,

In still, small accents breathing from the ground

A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

No more with reason and thyself at strife,

Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;

But through the cool sequestered vale of life

Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.

After the twenty-fifth stanza was the following:—

Him have we seen the greenwood side along,

While o’er the heath we hied, our labor done,

Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,

With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.

Preceding the epitaph was the following beautiful allusion to the rustic

tomb of the village scholar:—

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;

The redbreast loves to build and warble there,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

Gray began the composition of this exquisite poem in 1742; but so

carefully did he proceed, that it remained on his hands for seven years.

It is believed to have been mostly written within the precincts of the

church at Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge; and the curfew in

the poet’s mind was accordingly the great bell of St. Mary’s, tolled

regularly every evening at nine o’clock in Gray’s time and since.

As a piece of finished composition, possessing all the elements of true

poetry, in conception, in illustration, in the mechanical structure of

the verse, in the simplicity of the style, in the touching nature of the

ideas, the Elegy won from the outset a fame which, as a century of time

has but served to make it more certain and more illustrious, is likely

to last as long as mankind have the feelings of mortality.

As illustrations of the popularity of this poem, we may cite two

historical incidents that will be interesting and acceptable to the

reader.

On the night of September 13, 1759,—the night before the capture of

Quebec by the English,—as the boats were floating down the river to the

appointed landing, under cover of the night, and in the stillness of a

silence constrained on pain of death, Gen. Wolfe, just arisen from a bed

of sickness, harassed with the anxieties of a protracted yet fruitless

campaign, and his mind filled with the present hazard, slowly and softly

repeated its soothing lines; and he added to the officers around him,

“Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the author of that poem to the

glory of beating the French to-morrow.”

On the night of October 23, 1852,—the night before Daniel Webster’s

death,—the great statesman, having already been informed by his medical

attendant that nothing further could be done, except to render his last

hours more quiet, said, somewhat indistinctly, the words, “Poetry,

poetry,—Gray, Gray!” His son repeated the opening line of the Elegy, and

Mr. Webster said, “That is it! that is it!” The volume was brought, and

several stanzas of the poem were read to him, which gave him evident

pleasure.

Among the many who have sought notoriety by pinning themselves to the

skirts of Gray is a Mr. Edwards, author of _The Canons of Criticism_.

This gentleman, though a bachelor, was more attentive to the fair sex

than the pindaric Elegist, and, thinking there was a defect in the

immortal poem that should be supplied, wrote the following creditable

stanzas, which remind one of _Maud Muller_, to be introduced immediately

after “some Cromwell guiltless,” &c.

Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms

Shone forth, attraction in herself unknown,

Whose beauty might have blest a monarch’s arms,

And virtue cast a lustre on a throne.

That humble beauty warmed an honest heart

And cheered the labors of a faithful spouse;

That virtue formed for every decent part

The healthful offspring that adorned their house.

The following beautiful imitation, by an American poet, is the best that

has ever been offered to supply another remarkable deficiency,—the

absence of such reflections on the sublime truths and inspiring hopes of

Christianity as the scene would naturally awaken in a pious mind. With

the exception of two or three somewhat equivocal expressions, Gray says

scarcely a word which might not have been said by any one who believed

that death is an eternal sleep, and who was disposed to regard the

humble tenants of those tombs as indeed “each in his narrow cell

_forever_ laid.” A supplement according so well with the Elegy, both in

elevation of sentiment and force of diction, as the following, might

appropriately have followed the stanza,—

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.”

No airy dreams their simple fancies fired,

No thirst for wealth, nor panting after fame;

But truth divine sublimer hopes inspired,

And urged them onward to a nobler aim.

From every cottage, with the day, arose

The hallowed voice of spirit-breathing prayer;

And artless anthems, at its peaceful close,

Like holy incense, charmed the evening air.

Though they, each tome of human lore unknown,

The brilliant path of science never trod,

The sacred volume claimed their hearts alone,

Which taught the way to glory and to God.

Here they from truth’s eternal fountain drew

The pure and gladdening waters, day by day;

Learned, since our days are evil, fleet, and few,

To walk in Wisdom’s bright and peaceful way.

In yon lone pile o’er which hath sternly passed

The heavy hand of all-destroying Time,

Through whose low mouldering aisles now sigh the blest,

And round whose altars grass and ivy climb,

They gladly thronged, their grateful hymns to raise,

Oft as the calm and holy Sabbath shone;

The mingled tribute of their prayers and praise

In sweet communion rose before the throne.

Here, from those honored lips which sacred fire

From Heaven’s high chancery hath touched, they hear

Truths which their zeal inflame, their hopes inspire,

Give wings to faith, and check affliction’s tear.

When life flowed by, and, like an angel, Death

Came to release them to the world on high,

Praise trembled still on each expiring breath,

And holy triumph beamed from every eye.

Then gentle hands their “dust to dust” consign;

With quiet tears, the simple rites are said,

And here they sleep, till at the trump divine

The earth and ocean render up their dead.

SCENE FROM THE PARTING INTERVIEW OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

From the manuscript of Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad we select a

passage, with its alterations and emendations, characteristic, like

those of the foregoing, of the taste and precision of the author. It is

interesting to note the variety of epithets, the imperfect idea, the

gradual embellishment, and the critical erasures. But in their

contemplation, rather than say, with Waller,—

Poets lose half the praise they should have got,

Could it be known what they discreetly blot,

we should feel with Dr. Johnson, who remarked, upon examining the MSS.

of Milton, that “such relics show how excellence is acquired: what we

hope ever to do with ease we must learn first to do with diligence.”

Johnson himself employed the _limæ laborem_ on _The Rambler_ to an

extent almost incredible, and, according to Boswell, unknown in the

annals of literature.

Dr. Nash remarks that it is more difficult, and requires a greater

mastery of art, in painting to foreshorten a figure exactly than to draw

three at their just length; so it is more difficult in writing, to

express any thing naturally and briefly than to enlarge and dilate.

And therefore a judicious author’s blots

Are more ingenious than his first free thoughts.

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy

_Extends his eager arms to embrace his boy_,

lovely

Stretched his fond arms to seize the _beauteous_ boy;

babe

The _boy_ clung crying to his nurse’s breast,

Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.

each _kind_

With silent pleasure _the_ fond parent smiled,

And Hector hasted to relieve his child.

The glittering terrors unbound,

_His radiant helmet_ from his brows _unbraced_,

on the ground he

_And on the ground the glittering terror placed_,

beamy

And placed the _radiant_ helmet on the ground;

_Then seized the boy, and raising him in air_,

lifting

Then, _fondling_ in his arms his infant heir,

_dancing_

Thus to the gods addressed a father’s prayer:

glory fills

O thou, whose _thunder shakes_ th’ ethereal throne,

deathless

And all ye _other_ powers, protect my son!

_Like mine, this war, blooming youth with every virtue bless!_

_grace_

_The shield and glory of the Trojan race;

Like mine, his valor and his just renown,

Like mine, his labors to defend the crown._

Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,

the Trojans,

To guard _my country_, to defend the crown;

_In arms like me, his country’s war to wage_,

Against his country’s foes the war to wage,

And rise the Hector of the future age!

successful

So when, triumphant from _the glorious_ toils,

Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,

Whole hosts may

_All Troy shall_ hail him, with deserved acclaim,

own the son

And _cry, This chief_ transcends his father’s fame;

While, pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,

His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.

fondly on her

He said, and, gazing _o’er his consort’s charms_,

Restored his infant to her longing arms:

on

Soft _in_ her fragrant breast the babe she laid,

_Pressed to her heart_, and with a smile surveyed;

to repose

Hushed _him to rest_, and with a smile surveyed;

_passion_

But soon the troubled pleasure _mixed with rising fears_

dashed with fear,

The tender pleasure soon chastised by fear,

She mingled with the smile a tender tear.

In the established text will be found still further variations. These

are marked below in Italics:—

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy

Stretched his fond arms to _clasp_ the lovely boy.

The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,

Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.

With _secret_ pleasure each fond parent smiled,

And Hector hasted to relieve his child.

The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,

And placed the _beaming_ helmet on the ground;

_Then kissed the child_, and lifting high in air,

Thus to the gods _preferred_ a father’s prayer:—

O thou, whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,

And all ye deathless powers, protect my son!

Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,

To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown;

Against his country’s foes the war to wage,

And rise the Hector of the future age!

So when, triumphant from successful toils,

Of heroes slain, he bears the reeking spoils,

Whole hosts may hail him, with deserved acclaim,

And _say, This chief_ transcends his father’s fame;

While, pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,

His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.

He _spoke_, and, fondly gazing on her charms,

Restored _the pleasing burden to her arms_:

Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,

Hushed to repose, and with a smile surveyed.

The _troubled pleasure_ soon chastised by fear,

She mingled with the smile a tender tear.

POPE’S VERSIFICATION.

The mechanical structure of Pope’s verses may be shown by omitting

dissyllabic qualifying words, which are comparatively unimportant, and

converting a ten-syllable into an eight-syllable metre, as in the

following examples. First read the full text as in the original, and

then read with the words in brackets omitted:—

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the [direful] spring

Of woes unnumbered, [Heavenly] Goddess, sing!

That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s [gloomy] reign

The souls of [mighty] chiefs untimely slain;

Whose limbs unburied on the [naked] shore,

Devouring dogs and [hungry] vultures tore—

Now turn from the _Iliad_ to the _Rape of the Lock_:—

And now [unveiled] the toilet stands displayed,

Each silver vase in [mystic] order laid.

A [heavenly] image in the glass appears,

To that she bends, [to that] her eyes she rears;

The [inferior] priestess at her altar’s side,

[Trembling] begins the sacred rights of pride.

Unnumbered treasures ope [at once], and here

The [varied] offerings of the world appear.

From each she nicely culls with [curious] toil,

And decks the goddess with the [glittering] spoil.

IMPORTANCE OF PUNCTUATION.

The following passage occurs in Marlowe’s _Edward II._:—

_Mortimer Jun._—This letter written by a friend of ours,

Contains his death, yet bids them save his life.

_Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est._

Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.

But read it thus, and that’s another sense:

_Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est._

Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go, &c.

Mr. Collier appends the following note:—

Sir J. Harington has an Epigram [L. i., E. 33] “Of writing with double

pointing,” which is thus introduced:—“It is said that King Edward, of

Carnarvon, lying at Berkely Castle, prisoner, a cardinal wrote to his

keeper, _Edwardum occidere noli, timere bonum est_, which being read

with the point at _timere_, it cost the king his life.”

The French have a proverb, _Faute d’un point Martin perdit son ane_,

(through want of a point [or stop] Martin lost his ass,) equivalent to

the English saying, _A miss is as good as a mile_. This proverb

originated from the following circumstance:—A priest named Martin, being

appointed abbot of a religious house called Asello, directed this

inscription to be placed over his gate:—

§Porta patens esto, nulli claudatur honesto.§

(Gate, be thou open,—to no honest man be shut.)

But the ignorant painter, by placing the stop after the word _nulli_,

entirely altered the sense of the verse, which then stood thus:—

Gate, be open to none;—be shut against every honest man.

The Pope being informed of this uncharitable inscription, took up the

matter in a very serious light, and deposed the abbot. His successor was

careful to correct the punctuation of the verse, to which the following

line was added:—

Pro solo puncto caruit Martinus Asello.

(For a single stop Martin lost Asello.)

The word Asello having an equivocal sense, signifying an ass as well as

the name of the abbey, its former signification has been adopted in the

proverb.

A nice point has recently occupied the attention of the French courts of

law. Mons. de M. died on the 27th of February, leaving a will, entirely

in his own handwriting, which he concludes thus:—

“And to testify my affection for my nephews Charles and Henri de M., I

bequeath to each _d’eux_ [i.e. _of them_] [or _deux_, i.e. _two_]

hundred thousand francs.”

The paper was folded before the ink was dry, and the writing is blotted

in many places. The legatees assert that the apostrophe is one of those

blots; but the son and heir-at-law maintains, on the contrary, that the

apostrophe is intentional. This apostrophe is worth to him two hundred

thousand francs; and the difficulty is increased by the fact that there

is nothing in the context that affords any clew to the real intention of

the testator.

Properly punctuated, the following nonsense becomes sensible rhyme, and

is doubtless as true as it is curious, though as it now stands it is

very curious if true:—

I saw a pigeon making bread;

I saw a girl composed of thread;

I saw a towel one mile square;

I saw a meadow in the air;

I saw a rocket walk a mile;

I saw a pony make a file;

I saw a blacksmith in a box;

I saw an orange kill an ox;

I saw a butcher made of _steel_;

I saw a penknife dance a reel;

I saw a sailor twelve feet high;

I saw a ladder in a pie;

I saw an apple fly away;

I saw a sparrow making hay;

I saw a farmer like a dog;

I saw a puppy mixing grog;

I saw three men who saw these too,

And will confirm what I tell you.

The following is a good example of the unintelligible, produced by the

want of pauses in their right places:—

Every lady in this land

Hath twenty nails upon each hand;

Five and twenty on hands and feet,

And this is true without deceit.

Punctuated thus, the true meaning will at once appear:—

Every lady in this land

Hath twenty nails: upon each hand

Five; and twenty on hands and feet;

And this is true without deceit.

The wife of a mariner about to sail on a distant voyage sent a note to

the clergyman of the parish, expressing the following meaning:—

A husband going to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the

congregation.

Unfortunately, the good matron was not skilled in punctuation, nor had

the minister quick vision. He read the note as it was written:—

A husband going to see his wife, desires the prayers of the

congregation.

* * * * *

Horace Smith, speaking of the ancient Oracles, says, “If the presiding

deities had not been shrewd punsters, or able to inspire the Pythoness

with ready equivoques, the whole establishment must speedily have been

declared bankrupt. Sometimes they only dabbled in accentuation, and

accomplished their prophecies by the transposition of a stop, as in the

well-known answer to a soldier inquiring his fate in the war for which

he was about to embark. §Ibis, redibis. Nunquam in bello peribis.§ (You

will go, you will return. Never in war will you perish.) The warrior set

off in high spirits upon the faith of this prediction, and fell in the

first engagement, when his widow had the satisfaction of being informed

that he should have put the full stop after the word _nunquam_, which

would probably have put a _full stop_ to his enterprise and saved his

life.”

INDIAN HERALDRY.

A sanguine Frenchman had so high an opinion of the pleasure to be

enjoyed in the study of heraldry, that he used to lament, as we are

informed by Menage, the hard case of our forefather Adam, who could not

possibly amuse himself by investigating that science or that of

genealogy.

A similar instance of egregious preference for a favorite study occurs

in a curious work on Heraldry, published in London, in 1682, the author

of which adduces, as an argument of the science of heraldry being

founded on the universal propensities of human nature, the fact of

having seen some American Indians with their skins tattooed in stripes

parallel and crossed (barries). The book bears the following

title:—_Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam. Authore Johanne Gibbono

Armorumservulo quem a mantilio dicunt Cæruleo._ The singular and amusing

extract appended is copied from page 156:—

The book entitled _Jews in America_ tells you that the sachem and chief

princes of the Nunkyganses, in New England, submitted to King Charles

I., subscribing their names, and setting their seals, which were a §BOW

BENT§, §CHARGED WITH AN ARROW§, §a T reversed§, §A TOMAHAWK OR HATCHET

ERECTED§, such a one borne §BARRYWISE§, edge downward, and a §FAWN§. A

great part of Anno 1659, till February the year following, I lived in

Virginia, being most hospitably entertained by the honorable Col. R.

Lee, sometime secretary of state there, and who after the king’s

martyrdom hired a Dutch vessel, freighted her himself, and went to

Brussels, surrendered up Sir William Barclaie’s old commission (for the

government of that Province), and received a new one from his present

majesty (a loyal action, and deserving my commemoration): neither will I

omit his arms, being §Gul. a Fes. chequy, or, Bl between eight billets

Arg.§ being descended from the Lees of Shropshire, who sometimes bore

eight _billets_, sometimes ten, and sometimes the _Fesse Contercompone_

(as I have seen by our office-records). I will blason it thus: _In

Clypeo rutilo; Fasciam pluribus quadratis auri et cyani, alternis

æquisque spaciis_ (_ducter triplici positis_) _confectam et inter octo

Plinthides argenteas collocatam_. I say, while I lived in Virginia, I

saw once a war-dance acted by the natives. The dancers were painted some

§party per pale Gul. et sab.§ from forehead to foot (some §PARTY PER

FESSE§, of the same colors), and carried little ill-made shields of

bark, also painted of those colors (for I saw no other), some §PARTY PER

FESSE§, some §PER PALE§ (and some §BARRY§), at which I exceedingly

wondered, and concluded that heraldry was engrafted naturally into the

sense of the human race. If so, it deserves a greater esteem than is

now-a-days put upon it.

THE ANACHRONISMS OF SHAKSPEARE.

Poets, in the proper exercise of their art, may claim greater license of

invention and speech, and far greater liberty of illustration and

embellishment, than is allowed to the sober writer of history; but

historical truth or chronological accuracy should not be entirely

sacrificed to dramatic effect, especially when the poem is founded upon

history, or designed generally to represent historical truth. In the

matchless works of Shakspeare we look instinctively for exactness in the

details of time, place, and circumstance; and it is therefore with no

little surprise that we find he has misplaced, in such instances as the

following, the chronological order of events, of the true state of which

it can hardly be supposed he was ignorant.

In the play of _Coriolanus_, Titus Lartius is made to say, addressing C.

Marcius,—

Thou wast a soldier even to _Cato’s_ wish.

It is a little curious how Marcius could have been a soldier to “Cato’s

wish,” for Marcius, surnamed Coriolanus, was banished from Rome and died

more than two hundred years before Cato’s eyes first saw the light. In

the same play Menenius says of Marcius, “He sits in his state as a thing

made for Alexander,” or like Alexander. The anachronism made in this

case is almost as bad as that just given, for Coriolanus was banished

from Rome and died not far from §B.C.§ 490, and Alexander was not born

until almost one hundred and fifty years after. And the poet in the same

play makes still another error in the words which he puts in the mouth

of Menenius:—“The most sovereign prescription in Galen is but

empiricutic.” Now, as the renowned “father of medicine” was not born

until §A.D.§ 130, of which fact it seems hardly probable that Shakspeare

could have been ignorant, he has overleaped more than six hundred years

to introduce Galen to his readers.

In the tragedy of _Julius Cæsar_ occurs a historical inaccuracy which

cannot be excused on the ground of dramatic effect. It must be imputed

to downright carelessness. It is in the following lines:—

_Brutus._ Peace! count the clock.

_Cassius._ The clock has stricken three.

Cassius and Brutus both must have been endowed with the vision of a

prophet, for the first striking clock was not introduced into Europe

until more than eight hundred years after they had been laid in their

graves. And in the tragedy of _King Lear_ there is an inaccuracy, in

regard to spectacles, as great as that in _Julius Cæsar_ respecting

clocks. King Lear was king of Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon period of

English history; yet Gloster, commanding his son to show him a letter

which he holds in his hands, says, “Come, let’s see: if it be nothing, I

shall not want spectacles.” It is generally admitted that spectacles

were not worn in Europe until the end of the thirteenth or the

commencement of the fourteenth century.

Shakspeare also anticipates in at least two plays, and by many years,

the important event of the first use of cannon in battle or siege. In

his great tragedy of _Macbeth_, he speaks of cannon “overcharged with

double cracks;” and _King John_ says,—

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France,

For ere thou canst report, I will be there;

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.

Cannon, it will be recollected, were first used at Cressy, in 1346,

whereas Macbeth was killed in 1054, and John did not begin to reign

until 1199. In the _Comedy of Errors_, the scene of which is laid in the

ancient city of Ephesus, mention is made of modern denominations of

money, as guilders and ducats; also of a striking clock, and a nunnery.

SHAKSPEARE’S HEROINES.

Ruskin says:—Shakspeare has no heroes—he has only heroines. There is not

one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, except the slight sketch of

Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the purposes of the stage, and the

still slighter Valentine in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. In his

labored and perfect plays you have no hero. Othello would have been one,

if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave him the prey of

every base practice around him; but he is the only example even

approximating the heroic type. Hamlet is indolent and drowsily

speculative; Romeo an impatient boy. Whereas there is hardly a play that

has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope and errorless

purpose. Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogene, Queen

Katherine, Perdita, Silvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, and last, and

perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless.

SHAKSPEARE AND TYPOGRAPHY.

The great Caxton authority in England—Mr. William Blades—has turned his

attention to Shakspeare, and applies his knowledge as a practical

printer to the poet’s works, in order to see what acquaintance they show

with the compositor’s art. The result is strikingly set forth in a

volume entitled “_Shakspeare and Typography_.” Many instances of the use

of technical terms by Shakspeare are cited by Mr. Blades, such as the

following:—

1. “Come we to _full points_ here? And are _et ceteras_ nothing?—_2

Henry IV._, ii. 4.”

2. “If a book is folio, and two pages of type have been composed, they

are placed in proper position upon the imposing stone, and enclosed

within an iron or steel frame, called a ‘chase,’ small wedges of hard

wood, termed ‘coigns’ or ‘quoins,’ being driven in at opposite sides

to make all tight.

By the four opposing _coigns_

Which the world together joins.—Pericles, iii. 1.

This is just the description of a form in folio, where two quoins on one

side are always opposite to two quoins on the other, thus together

joining and tightening all the separate stamps.”

SHAKSPEARE’S SONNETS.

Schlegel says that sufficient use has not been made of Shakspeare’s

Sonnets as important materials for his biography. Let us see to what

conclusions they may lead us. In Sonnet §XXXVII.§, for example, he

says:—

As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, _made lame_ by fortune’s dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

And again, in Sonnet §LXXXIX.§,—

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,

And I will comment upon that offence;

Speak of my _lameness_, and I straight will halt,

Against thy reasons making no defence.

Was Shakspeare lame? “A question to be asked;” and there is nothing in

the inquiry repugnant to poetic justice, for he has made Julius Cæsar

deaf in his left ear. Where did he get his authority?

HAMLET’S AGE.

Shakspeare’s Hamlet was thirty years old, as is indicated by the text in