his articles in the _Century Magazine_, is announced.
MESSRS. F. HILTON PRICE and J. E. Price have just published the tenth
edition of their Guide to the Roman Villa near Brading, in the Isle of
Wight.
THE two-hundredth anniversary of Watteau’s birth will be celebrated at
Valenciennes on October 10, when a monument by Hiolle and a statue by
Carpeaux will be inaugurated.
A FUND is being raised to preserve the Saxon tower of Earl’s Barton
Church, near Northampton, under the direction of Mr. T. L. Pearson, R.A.
MR. E. A. FREEMAN intends to inaugurate his professorship at Oxford next
term with a course of lectures on “The Method of Historical Study.” He
will also lecture on “Gregory of Tours.”
DR. PHENÈ, F.S.A., is engaged in investigating the museums and private
collections of antiquities in Scandinavia, and also the Mounds of
Norway, and the stone monuments of Denmark and Sweden, in continuation
of his researches in Iceland and the North American continent.
THE Abbot Pietro Pressutti has completed the first volume of the
“Regesta” (_i.e._, the letter-books) of Pope Honorius III., dating from
1216 to 1227, compiled by order of the Pope from the Codices in the
Vatican archives.
THE “History of the Church of Manchester,” compiled from ancient
documents and authentic records, by the Rev. Ernest F. Letts, M.A.,
Precentor and Minor Canon, is announced for publication, by Mr. Henry
Gray, of Cathedral-yard, Manchester.
THE suggestion of the Mayor of Lichfield that Dr. Johnson’s centenary
should be celebrated in December next, was anticipated by a letter from
Mr. Walford, the editor of this magazine, which was published in the
_Athenæum_ several months ago.
AN order has been made by Mr. Justice Chitty, authorising the Trustees
of the Marlborough Estates and Heirlooms to sell to the Trustees of the
National Gallery the Madonna Ansidei, by Raphael, for £70,000; and the
equestrian picture of Charles I., by Van Dyck, for £17,500. The Trustees
were also authorised to sell two pictures in the Blenheim Collection by
Rubens, namely, one of that artist and his second wife and another of
that lady and her page, for £50,000.
THE extensive collection of coins and medals, and also of antiquities,
belonging to the family of the late Dr. Jacob Amiet, ex-Attorney-General
of the Swiss Confederation at Solothurn, Switzerland, is announced for
sale. The coins and medals include Greek, Roman, Swiss, French, English,
and Italian; and among the antiquities are Egyptian idols and Babylonian
cylinders; also weapons, tools, ornaments, &c., of the stone, bronze,
and iron ages; potteries and implements of earthenware, stone, and
glass, &c. Full particulars of the collection can be obtained from Mr.
F. Schulthess, 16, Cantlowes-road, Camden-square, N.W.
LORD GRANVILLE is about to erect a monument at Ebb’s Fleet, near Pegwell
Bay, in commemoration of the landing there of St. Augustine on his
mission to England in the sixth century. The memorial will consist of a
reproduction of one of the famous Saxon crosses at Sandbach, near Crewe,
and stands twelve feet in height. On the west front will be carved a
representation of the landing of Augustine, the annunciation,
crucifixion, the transfiguration, saints, early Christian martyrs, &c.
GENERAL PITT-RIVERS, as Inspector of Ancient Monuments in Great Britain,
has printed, by permission of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Works, his
official report to them on excavations in the Pen pits, near Penselwood,
Somerset, made for the purpose of ascertaining whether any portion of
these ancient pits should be placed under the protection of the Ancient
Monuments Act. The excavations took place in October, 1883.
CATALOGUES of rare and curious books, all of which contain the names of
works of antiquarian interest, have reached us from Mr. William Downing,
74, New-street, Birmingham; Mr. Frank Murray, 26, Strand, Derby
(includes purchases from the Gosford Library); Mr. Andrew Iredale, 3,
Cary-place, Torquay; Messrs. Jefferies & Sons, Redcliff-street, Bristol;
Mr. William Withers, Loseby-lane, Leicester; Mr. A. B. Osborne, 11, Red
Lion-passage, W.C.; Mr. W. P. Bennett, 3, Bull-street, Birmingham; Mr.
James Aston, 49B, Lincoln’s Inn-fields; Messrs. Fawn & Son, 18,
Queen’s-road, Bristol; Mr. J. Whiteley, 2, Princess-street, Halifax,
Yorkshire.
THE following articles, more or less of an antiquarian character, appear
among the contents of the magazines for September: _Macmillan_, “The
Northumbrian Border,” and “A Genealogical Search;” _English Illustrated_
Magazine, “Covent Garden;” _Contemporary Review_, “The Purgatorio of
Dante;” _Art Journal_, “Preservation of the Monuments of Cairo,” “The
Port of Leith,” and “Delft Ware;” _Fortnightly Review_, “Sport and
Travel in Norway; “ _Magazine of Art_, “A Cartoon by Leonardo,” “Strand
and Mall,” “Head-gear in the Fifteenth Century,” “Menzel and Frederick
the Great;” “The Inns of Chancery,” by Rev. W. J. Loftie, and “Old
Church Plate,” by Rev. H. Whitehead; _Century Magazine_, “From Coventry
to Chester;” _St. Nicholas Magazine_, “The Queen’s Museum.”
MR. J. T. WOOD, writing from Blenheim House, Brighton, draws attention
to the marbles from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus which are now
arranged in what is designated “The Ephesian Gallery” at the British
Museum. He does so with the hope that the sight of these interesting
relics of the temple will induce some of those who can well afford it to
subscribe to the fund for the completion of the excavations on the site
of the temple, which his committee wish to renew in the course of the
month of October under his direction. By completing these excavations
Mr. Wood hopes to secure for the British Museum treasures of Greek art
equal in value and interest to those which are already in our
possession.
THE works in connection with Peterborough Cathedral are progressing
rapidly. An oblong underground chamber--not a tomb--has recently been
discovered. It has sides of stone and lime, a floor of stone flags, and
a roof formed of the floor of the cathedral itself. This chamber
measures 6 ft. 3 in. in length, by 4 ft. in width, and has a depth of 6
ft. A curved range of steps of about two yards in extent, and hitherto
quite concealed, leads down to an entrance on the flank side of the
cavity. The chamber was filled with lumber of all descriptions,
including fragments of the famous choir screen which fell a prey to
Cromwell’s zealots, scraps of leathern work, iron, steel, half charred
wood, and a quantity of bones. Its original use is uncertain.
Antiquarian Correspondence.
Sin scire labores,
Quære, age: quærenti pagina nostra patet.
_All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the
sender, not necessarily for publication._
THE JOHNSON CENTENARY.
SIR,--I desire to place before the public generally, and my
fellow-citizens in particular, the question of the forthcoming Centenary
of the death of Dr. Johnson. I feel that I am not called upon to enter
into the details of the life of the great lexicographer, nor need I
refer to the influence he exercised in so many and various ways over the
literature of his country. The question with which I, as Mayor, have to
deal is--Whether the Centenary of his death, which happens in December
next, shall be observed; and, if so, what shall be the character of such
demonstration? From time to time various schemes have been advocated,
but it seems to me that, after the numerous appeals for funds lately
made in every direction, it is not advisable to undertake any
responsibility calculated to entail a large financial risk. At the same
time, without in any way attempting to indicate the direction of such a
celebration, and, indeed, without expressing a personal opinion in the
matter, I deem it a duty to thus publicly invite expressions of opinion.
We have somewhat over two months before us--sufficient time, I think, if
desired, to arrange a moderate programme. I therefore invite all who
feel interested to communicate by letter with me on the following
points:--
1. Is it desirable to observe the Centenary of Dr. Johnson’s death?
2. If so, what form shall such observance take?
3. If arrangements are made for some observance of it, in what way are
they likely or willing to aid it?
I must ask that all replies and offers of assistance shall be sent to me
as early as possible, marked outside “Dr. Johnson’s Centenary.” If they
are of such a nature as to indicate the prospect of a thoroughly
successful observance, I will at once convene a meeting of those
favourable to the project, and do what I can, privately and officially,
to secure its success. If, on the other hand, the replies indicate a
reasonable doubt as to the success or desirability of the undertaking, I
shall (after consultation with others interested in the matter) feel
myself at liberty to abandon the proposed movement. I therefore wish it
to be understood that the celebration, if any, will be set on foot at
the desire of those who by replying to this communication express
themselves in favour of it. I think this is the better way to deal with
the subject; at all events it will relieve me, as Mayor, of personal
responsibility should the attempt to secure some notice of the death of
our chief citizen fail for want of the requisite enthusiasm. I would
press on everyone really interested to give me the assistance of their
opinion and advice by the date indicated.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
THOMAS H. HUNT, Mayor of Lichfield.
_Lichfield Close, September 17._
PORTS AND CHESTERS.
SIR,--Your readers may have observed, and with some amusement, that the
simultaneous assault on my position by Dr. Pring and Mr. Hall, in your
last issue, has ended in the somewhat untoward result of their
discovering that they are themselves hopelessly at issue on the
fundamental point of all! Dr. Pring persists that the “port” in
“port-reeve” is derived from the Latin _porta_, a city gate (p. 114):
Mr. Hall asserts with equal confidence that it comes “by transition from
the Latin _portus_,” a haven (p. 149). Dr. Pring appeals to “the learned
Professor Stubbs” (p. 114), but “seems” (to adopt his own expression)
“to have found it convenient to ignore” that I have shown Dr. Stubbs’
rendering of the passage from the Laws of Athelstan to be simply
destructive of his own. I repeat, that when Dr. Pring renders it
“outside the port _or gate_” (p. 115), the words “or gate” _are_, and
should be distinguished as, a mere gloss of his own, and must not,
therefore, be appealed to by him as evidence. My own quotation: “Newport
Gate,” in Lincoln (p. 115), is no gloss of my own at all, but a
_verbatim_ copy. Dr. Pring must indeed be hard up if he falls back on
the Latinisation of East Gate as _portam de East Gatâ_ (temp. Henry I.),
since by the mediæval scribe, as by the modern schoolboy, a gate would
be rightly styled in Latin a _porta_ (“East gate” being suffixed as a
proper name for the sake of distinction). What conceivable bearing has
this on the use of the term “port” (for a market town) in Anglo-Saxon
times? Yet such is the disingenuous argument of my critic, who proclaims
that I “must surely have overlooked these and similar instances”! And if
he had done me the honour to read my paper with common care, he would
have seen that I carefully distinguish the “port” of proper names, such
as “Newport Gate,” from the “port” in “port-reeve.” This destroys his
criticism.
When Dr. Pring appealed to Dr. Stubbs, as laying down that “port” was
derived from “porta,” _because the gate was the place where the markets
were held_, I proved by demonstration that the markets were _not_ held
at the gate, but in the heart of the town, and that consequently the
argument breaks down. What does Dr. Pring do? He ridicules this disproof
of the very argument he had appealed to as “scarcely necessary” (p.
116), and as based on “a well-known fact”! Verily, we have here, to
quote his own words, a “unique and somewhat anomalous specimen of
argument.”
Dr. Pring’s arguments could similarly be rebutted at every point, but
lest I weary the patience of your readers, it will probably be
sufficient if I invite them to observe that on the one hand, Dr. Pring,
deriving “port” from _porta_, declares the process by which a _town_
came to be called a _gate_, so “easy and obvious” (p. 114), that he need
not (_i.e._, cannot) explain it; while, on the other, Mr. Hall, deriving
port from _portus_, is equally confident that an inland town would, in
the natural course of things, be known as a sea-port (_portus_)! When
Dr. Pring has converted Mr. Hall, or Mr. Hall has converted Dr. Pring,
it will then, and not before, be time for them to think of uniting their
forces in a combined attack on my own theory, which sees in the
Anglo-Saxon “port,” as found in “port-reeve,” &c., a word with a
denotation different from that either of _portus_ or of _porta_. At
present it remains, unimpugned, as the only rational and consistent
theory. It will, doubtless, like all original theories, be viewed at
first with suspicion and dislike, but I hope, in time, to have it cast
at me, _more Pringensi_, by those who do so, that it is “scarcely
necessary” to prove it, as it is to all “a well-known fact.”
J. H. ROUND.
_Colchester._
_TO CORRESPONDENTS._
THE Editor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS.
voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.
Books Received.
1. The Old Registers of St. John Baptist, Peterborough. By Rev. W. D.
Sweeting, M.A. Peterborough: G. C. Caster. 1884.
2. The Hull Quarterly. Parts i.--iii. Hull: A. Brown & Sons. 1884.
3. A Guide to the Roman Villa near Brading. By J. E. Price, F.S.A., and
F. G. Hilton Price, F.S.A. Tenth Edition. Ventnor: Briddon Brothers.
1884.
4. The Earldom of Mar. By P. H. McKerlie, F.S.A. Scot. Privately
printed. 1884.
5. Annus Sanctus. Hymns of the Church for the Ecclesiastical Year.
Selected and arranged by Orby Shipley, M.A. Burns & Oates. 1884.
6. Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. By J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps,
F.R.S. Longmans & Co. 1884.
7. Our Parish Books, and What they Tell us. By J. M. Cowper, F.R.H.S.
Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. 1884.
8. Buckfast Abbey. By the Rev. S. Hamilton, O.S.B. Ramsgate: _Kent Coast
Times_ Office. 1884.
9. Wilton Castle. By the Vicar of the Parish. London: E. Stamford. 1884.
10. Calendar of State Papers. Colonial Series: East Indies, China, and
Persia (1625-1629). Edited by W. Noel Sainsbury. Longman & Co. 1884.
11. English Scholar’s Library. Capt. John Smith’s Works (1608-1631). By
Edward Arber, 1, Montague-road, Birmingham. 1884.
12. Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare. By the Rev. Henry N.
Ellacombe, M.A. Second edition. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1884.
Books, &c., for Sale.
Works of Hogarth (set of original Engravings, elephant folio, without
text), bound. Apply by letter to W. D., 56, Paragon-road, Hackney, N.E.
Original water-colour portrait of Jeremy Bentham, price 2 guineas. Apply
to the Editor of this Magazine.
A large collection of Franks, Peers’ and Commoners’. Apply to E.
Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.
Books, &c., Wanted to Purchase.
_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, several copies of No. 2
(February, 1882) are wanted, in order to complete sets. Copies of the
current number will be given in exchange at the office.
Dodd’s Church History, 8vo., vols. i. ii. and v.; Waagen’s Art and
Artists in England, vol. i.; East Anglian, vol. i., Nos. 26 and 29. The
Family Topographer, by Samuel Tymms, vols. iii. and iv.; Notes and
Queries, the third Index. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” (Ingram and
Cooke’s edition), vol. iii. A New Display of the Beauties of England,
vol. i., 1774. Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i.
Address, E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, Edgeware-road, N.W.
[Illustration: TESSELLATED PAVEMENT DISCOVERED AT THE ROMAN VILLA NEAR
BRADING (_see p. 237, post_).]
(From _Messrs. Price’s Guide to the Roman Villa at Morton, near
Brading_.)
[Illustration]
_The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer._
Forecastings of Nostradamus.
By C. A. WARD.
_PART IV._
(_Continued from p. 60._)
IN the preface, addressed to his son Cæsar, he shows himself perfectly
alive to the poor reception his book is likely to meet with from many;
he says: “Qu’elle fera retirer le front en arrière à plus d’un qui la
lira, sans y rien comprendre.” He does not write for babes and the
illiterate, and has no sympathy with the words in Mark x. 14: “Sinite
parvulos venire ad me.” On the contrary, he cites from Matthew vii. 6
with approval the antithetical sentence uttered by the Saviour: “‘Nolite
sanctum dare canibus, ne conculcent pedibus et conversi disrumpant vos:’
which hath been the cause that I have withdrawn my tongue from the
vulgar, and my pen from paper.”
“But,” he runs on, “afterwards I was writing for the common good, to
enlarge myself in dark and abstruse sentences, declaring the future
events, chiefly the most urgent, and those which I foresaw (whatever
human mutation happened) _would not offend the hearers_.”[52]
Here the words marked in italics give us the limitation he set to his
own office and position. His function is purely that of a _seer_; he
foresees, and sometimes for the “common good” he records his
experiences,[53] but he does not take upon himself the mission of the
Baptist to “prepare a way” for great events, nor like Jeremiah to raise
a cry of national lamentation, nor like Isaiah will he denounce evil nor
evil-doers.
His idea of prophecy is nothing but the passivity of foresight. He
says:--
“The prophets, by means only of the immortal God and good angels,
have received the spirit of vaticination, by which they foresee
things and foretell future events; for nothing is perfect without
Him, whose power and goodness is so great to His creatures, that
though they are but men, nevertheless, by the likeness of our good
genius to the angels,[54] this heat and the prophetical power draws
near us, as it happens by the beams of the sun, which cast their
influence both on elementary and not elementary bodies; as for us
who are men, we cannot attain anything by our natural knowledge of
the secrets of God our Creator. ‘Quia non est nostrum nosse tempora
nec momenta,’ &c. (Acts i. 7.)”
It should be noticed by every candid critic that there is strong
internal evidence in this passage of genuine truthfulness in the writer.
First he defines his own position to be merely that of a _seer_. He then
gives his idea of a prophet, and describes him as one who has received a
spirit of vaticination by foresight. He then says that this prophetical
heat is unattainable by any natural knowledge of man, but comes like
that of the sun, direct from the Giver of all good gifts to man. This is
very much as Samuel How, the inspired cobbler, Bunyan, or any old
Puritan in the seventeenth century would have described it: “The
sufficiency of the Spirit’s teaching without human learning.” But in
addition to this perfect simplicity of spirit, he ventures to quote the
Saviour’s words: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons,”
which, with Matthew xxiv. 36, is the strongest passage in the New
Testament against a gift of prophecy in man. Would a man who had any
doubt at all about his possession of the faculty of prevision cite a
passage which seemed to withhold the prophetic gift from all mankind
under the new covenant of the Christian dispensation?
Grotius and Heinsius show that these words χρόνους ἧ καιροὺς should be
understood of the _time, times, and an half_, of Daniel (xii. 7), when
Christ, of the stem of Jesse, should begin under Constantine to direct
the executive government of kings on earth as King of kings, which took
place 300 years later. If this were to be hidden from Apostles, how
should a layman, and idiot (so to speak), look for inspiration? To me
this consideration entirely and finally disposes of any doubt as to
imposition intentional. Be Nostradamus prophet and seer, or not, it is
next to impossible for anyone of fair and impartial mind hereafter to
hold that he was an impostor. To suppose it even, is _impossible_ to a
rational judge, if we grant that we are, in a degree ever so little,
capable by nature of estimating the motives of a fellow-creature.
In another part of the preface he says:--
“Not that I will attribute to myself the name of a prophet, but as
a mortal man, being no farther from heaven by my sense than I am
from earth by my feet, _possum errare, falli, decipi_, I am the
greatest sinner of the world, subject to all humane afflictions,
but being surprised sometimes in the week by a prophetical humour,
and by a long calculation, pleasing myself in my study, I have made
books of prophecies, &c.”
He speaks also of the mode of enlightenment, “by a long melancholy
inspiration revealed,” and says it takes “its original from above, and
such light and small flame is of all efficacy and sublimity, no less
than the natural light makes the philosophers so secure.” All this
justifies fully the distich, so far as motive goes:--
“Vera loquor, non falsa loquor sed munere cœli,
Qui loquitur Deus est, non ego Nostradamus.”
He opens the first “Century” with an announcement (by some called an
incantation) of the methods by which he prepared himself for the
reception of the knowledge of future things:
“Estant assis, de nuit secrette estude,
Seul, reposé sur la selle d’airain,
Flambe exigue, sortant de solitude,
Fait proferer qui n’est a croire vain.”
“Sitting by night, in secret study alone, resting on a brazen seat,
a slight flame arising out of the solitude makes me utter things
not vain to be believed.”
“La verge en main, mise au milieu des Branches,
De l’onde je mouille et le Limb et le Pied,
En peur j’escris fremissant par les manches;
Splendeur Divine: le Divine prez s’assied.”
“With wand in hand placed amidst the branches, I wet with water the
limb and foot, and write in fear, trembling in my sleeves;
“Splendour divine! the Divinity sits at hand.’”
A tranquillised mind is requisite to prophecy. We find Elisha (2 Kings
iii. 15) requiring a minstrel to play, that the hand of the Lord may
come upon him. External objects disturb the senses, so that night is
best for contemplation, as Malebranche is said to have shut himself up
in a dark room to study and think out his “Recherche de la Vérité.”
Solitude is essential to prophecy. A man cannot commune with heaven in
the busy haunts of men. Nature is the presence-chamber of the Deity.
Every man of sensibility knows this; and the prophet most of all men
feels the pith and central depth of Pope’s fine line, and that he must
reach prophecy “Looking through Nature up to Nature’s God.” Society
demands that you sacrifice your convictions constantly to good manners.
Social convention contaminates noble originality and high principle.
Truth never dwells in the court of kings, and the drawing-rooms of the
well-to-do are no fitter for its shrine, for the men and women there are
royalties divested of respect and state-trappings; they are
over-pampered humanities for the most part: to be much in their company
you must compromise the divinest part of you--your convictions--and it
is by pursuing conviction that the soul flies heavenward. One might
write an essay on the Brazen Stool with its proverb _ex tripode loqui_,
but anyhow these opening verses convey to the mind with wonderful
brevity a vivid picture of a mediæval magician at his work.
Garencières allegorises here so widely as to show what havoc ingenuity
can play with _analogy_, which is a key to the occult things of the
universe in good hands--those of the prophet, poet, or genius of any
sort. The rod, he says, is the _pen_, placed in the middle of the
branches means the _fingers_ of the hand, the water he dips it in is the
_ink_ he writes with, wetting limb and foot is the _paper_ covered from
top to bottom. Was manuscript ever, since the world began, more
mystically shadowed forth?
The interest of English readers will perhaps be most readily drawn to
Nostradamus, by dealing first with some of the most remarkable
prophecies concerning England; and with the invaluable aid of M. Anatole
le Pelletier’s admirable work on Nostradamus, this can at any rate for a
few of the quatrains be most readily accomplished. He gives six examples
from the various “Centuries.” The first relates to the supremacy of
England at sea: “L’Angleterre le Panpotent des mers.” The word Panpotent
is a barbarous Græco-Latin word for πᾶν-potens, all-powerful.
The periods M. le Pelletier would assign to these changes or revolutions
in England extend from 1501, the birth of Lutheranism, to 1791, the
commencement of the French Revolution.
He selects Century iii., quatrain 57:--
“Sept fois changer verrez gent Britanique,
Teints en sang en deux cens nonante an;
Franche non point, par appuy Germanique;
Aries doubte son pole Bastarnan.”
“You shall see the British nation, inundated with blood, change
seven times in 290 years. But France not so, thanks to the firmness
of her Germanic kings. The sign of the Ram shall no longer
recognise the north of Europe (son pole Bastarnan) it will so have
changed.”[55]
Here we have to notice that 1501 plus 290 equals 1791, which may if you
like be taken as the date of the commencement of the French Revolution,
though commonly it is reckoned from 1789, the taking of the Bastille.
The Germanic kings are the descendants of Hugh Capet. Bastarnia stands
for Poland as its ancient name. The first dismemberment of Poland took
place in 1772. Then Russia grew into power, Peter ascended the throne
1682, and Lutheranism triumphed in Germany. Such changes might well
startle the Ram from all recognition of the northern world.
1501 is the date of the Renaissance, and from that to 1792 England is to
undergo seven revolutions.
1. In England Henry VIII. breaks free from Rome, and the Church of
England is set up in 1532.
2. 1553 Mary restores the Papal religion.
3. 1558 Elizabeth re-establishes Anglican independence.
4. In 1649 Charles I. is beheaded, and the Republic established under
Cromwell’s Protectorate.
5. In 1660 Charles II. is restored.
6. In 1689 James II. abdicating, is displaced by William III., his
son-in-law.
7. In 1714 George I., of the House of Hanover, is called to the throne.
The brevity with which all this is inferred is as remarkable as the
curious precision with which it was fulfilled.
The accession of James I. to the death of Charles I. (1603-1649) is set
forth in
CENTURY X. QUATRAIN 40.
“Le jeune nay au regne Britannique,
Qu’ aura ce père mourant recommandé,
Iceluy mort, _Lonole_[56] donra topique,[57]
Et à son fils le regne demandé.”[58]
“The young prince[59] of the kingdom of Britain (then first called
Great Britain) is born, whose father (Henry Darnley, assassinated
by Bothwell) in dying commended him to the protection of the
principal Scottish nobility. When this prince (James I. of England,
and VI. of Scotland) is dead, _Lonole_ by the employment of
Puritanical eloquence (or canting rhetoric) will despoil his son
(Charles I.) of his kingdom.”
Le Pelletier thinks it is quite clear that _Lonole_ Ολλὑων
stands for Cromwell, but a further coincidence arises, namely, that
_Lonole_ is an all but correct anagram of _Ole Nol_ or _Old Noll_, the
Protector’s nickname. Garencières prints _Londre_ for _Lonole_, and so
renders what at best is obscure entirely unintelligible, and fancies
that he clearly discerns it to be a prophecy concerning Charles II.,
because he was commended to the care of his subjects by Charles I. on
the scaffold.
CENTURY III. QUATRAIN 80 (in some Eds. 82).
“Du regne Anglois le digne dechassé[60]
Le conseiller par ire[61] mis à feu,
Ses adherents iront si bas tracer,[62]
Que le bastard sera demy receu.”
“He who had a right to the kingdom of England is displaced, is _mis
à feu_, sacrificed to the heat of popular fury. His adherents
descend to such a depth of baseness that the bastard (or usurper)
will be half received by the kingdom.”
That is to say, Charles I. will be deprived of power after having
yielded up Strafford to the popular fury, in the hope of escaping
himself. The Scotch (old adherents) will be so base as to sell him for
two millions to the Cromwellites, who put him to death, and Cromwell
becoming Protector, and not quite king, therefore will obtain an almost
royal bastard, _i.e._, a half reception (à demy receu).
CENTURY IX. QUATRAIN 49.
“Gand et Bruceles marcheront contre[63] Anvers,
Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy:
Le sel et vin luy seront à l’envers,
Pour eux avoir le regne en desarroy.”
“When Ghent and Brussels march over against Antwerp,[64] the Senate
of London, or the Long Parliament, will put their king to death.
Force and wisdom (vin et sel[65]) will be wanting to Charles’s
councils (lui seront à l’envers), and they (the Independents) will
in the general disorder become masters of the kingdom.”
CENTURY VIII. QUATRAIN 76.
“Plus Macelin[66] que Roi en Angleterre,
Lieu obscur nay par force aura l’Empire,
Lasche, sans foy, sans loy, saignera terre;
Son tems s’approche si près qui je souspire.”
“More butcher than king in England, a man of obscure birth [_né_ en
lieu obscur] by force shall obtain the Empire. Unprincipled,
restrained by neither faith nor law, he will drench the earth with
blood. His time approaches so near as to make me heave a sigh.”
This is an announcement of such unparalleled and terrific import that
Nostradamus exhibits more feeling over it than he does usually over his
prognostications. The butcher-like face of Cromwell, with its fleshy
conch and hideous warts, seems to have been visually present to him, and
to have struck him with such a sense of terror and vividness that he
imagines the time must be very near at hand. Though a full century had
to elapse, he sighs with a present shudder, and the blood creeps. One of
the remarkable features throughout the work of Nostradamus is the
general absence of any sense of time apart from the mere enumeration of
years as an algebraic or arithmetical sign; on this momentous occasion
he departs from his usual practice, and stands horror-stricken as in a
fearful vision.
CENTURY X. QUATRAIN 100.
“Le grand Empire sera par Angleterre
Le Pempotan des ans plus de trois cens:
Grandes copies passer par mer et terre,
Les Lusitains n’en serons par contens.”
“The great empire of England shall be all-powerful ( πᾶν-potens)
for more than 300 years.[67] Then great armies shall come by sea
and land, and the Portuguese shall not be satisfied therewith.”
This seems to foreshadow that the naval power of England will be
suppressed by sea-borne armies overwhelming her on her own shores, and
the Lusitanians, or Portuguese, the oldest allies of England, will not
be content, because, probably, Portugal at the same instant will be
overwhelmed by Spain simultaneously.
This is as far as we can go in English history under the guidance of Le
Pelletier. But, nevertheless, I shall adduce several more quatrains,
bringing the sequence down at least to the establishment of the House of
Hanover on the English throne in the person of George I.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration: text decoration]
Down a Yorkshire River.
_PART I._
Had any one been able to sail down the River Calder, say a hundred years
ago, long before the present little manufacturing towns had arisen on
its banks, he would have passed through some of the most lovely scenery
and through one of the loveliest mountain valleys in the county of York.
Even to-day, when ugly mills and numberless prosaic tenements of trade
disfigure, from an artistic point of view, the once grassy glades and
the once gloriously wooded slopes, the prospect in many spots retains
much of its virginal sweetness and romantic beauty. There are yet long
tracts which commerce has not irremediably mutilated--pleasant
meadowlands as fair with wilding flowers as of old; sylvan haunts of
birch and elm whose dusky quietude is well-nigh as unbroken and solemn
as of yore; bonnie tributary brooklets flashing and hurrying, like
silver-footed naiads, through clough and dell and dene. As the eye takes
a loftier and farther sweep the rugged contour and massive forms of
forest-clad and moorland-capped mountains may be seen to wear much the
same aspect they wore in the primal historic days of Roman and Celt. The
conquests of commerce over both material and mental difficulties are
apparent almost everywhere on the lowlands, for which all sensible and
right-thinking minds are grateful, plain and anti-poetical as the
outward signs may be in the jumble of viaduct and railway station, of
factory and shop. But the old world of chivalry and romance is not
altogether pushed aside: there are the ruins of stately and curiously
carved gateways whence issued squire and yeoman to join the Pilgrimage
of Grace, or later, gallant cavaliers, eager to mingle in the fray on
the far-away field of Marston Moor; there are a few old Elizabethan
halls with mullioned window and grey stone porch, in whose cool recesses
the inmates waited anxiously and breathlessly for tidings about the
great Armada; and here and there, built by pious hands that have been
still for centuries, there are relics of quiet, quaint chapelle, where
repose the ashes of Crusader knight, and of knights who fought so
fiercely in the bloody wars of the Red and White Rose; and now and then
we come across a grand antique church, crowded by worshippers where the
ritual and the language of the worship have undergone many changes, and
around whose hallowed precincts have gathered historic traditions and
saintly legends, hoarier and older than the lichens that crust the
mouldering towers. The tall chimneys are rising in the busy centres of
trade, but occasionally we shelter under an oak or a yew-tree whose
youth was fanned by less smutty winds; railway whistles have scared the
nightingale, but the lark still carols anear human dwellings; graylings
no longer leap the river-weir, but the waters sing and gleam as they
glide seaward down the hushed moonlit glens.
The Calder, one of the most picturesque of northern rivers, rises near
Cliviger Dene, in Lancashire, and enters the county of York through a
wild gorge at Todmorden. As to the origin of the word there have been
many conjectures, some plausible, but none to my mind satisfactory. An
able writer in a provincial publication gives the derivation from two
Celtic words, _coll_, the hazel-tree, and _dur_, water. The fatal
objection to this is that hazel-trees never grew in such abundance in
this valley as to be a distinguishing feature. Place-names with the
Celtic _coll_ and the Saxon _hæsel_ are very rarely found. Had copses or
shaws of the hazel flourished to such an extent as to give a name to the
river, their former existence would still be traceable in the abiding
nomenclature of the country through which the Calder runs its course.
The Rev. Thomas Wright, who published a work on the antiquities of the
parish of Halifax, where he was curate for more than seventeen years,
noticing the Calder states that the spring is called _Cal_ or _Col_, and
is joined by the River _Dar_. This is a purely fanciful supposition,
and, I believe, not borne out by facts. Dr. Whitaker urges a Danish
derivation. The Danes unquestionably won and maintained a lasting hold
on the hills overlooking the Calder. As soon as this mountain-born
stream assumes the dignity and proportions of a river at Todmorden, it
washes on the one hand Langfield, the Long Range of hills, and on the
other Stansfield, the Stony Range, whilst a few miles lower down it
flows at the foot of Norland, the North-land--all Danish, or more
correctly Scandinavian, terms. Then, on the slopes rising from the south
banks, we have Sowerby and Fixby, two ancient “by’s,” where families of
predatory Danes took up their abode. Other nomenclature traces of the
same nation, of the great Canute himself possibly, might be mentioned in
favour of the argument on this side of the question; though (I write
from memory) I believe Dr. Whitaker does not point out the surrounding
Danish indications I have here advanced. Another historian surmised that
the original Celtic name was _Dur_, and that the Saxons on settling in
this neighbourhood added the adjective _ceald_ or _cold_. But this is
very improbable, the river in question being no cooler than any other.
I venture to urge a derivation different from any of the above, viz.,
from the Celtic _caoill_ (wood) and _dur_ (water). That Celts, the
Brigantian clan, lived in this locality is an historic fact, the proofs
of which need not be here adduced. The Calder beck as soon as it issues
from the spring in Cliviger Dene flows by a long stretching sweep of
woodland, and farther on among the hills of Yorkshire, a broader and a
nobler stream, pursues its course for miles through dense primeval
forests, among which may be mentioned the once famous forest of
Hardwick. Its precipitous banks were clothed with no mere hazel coppice,
but with vast masses of the more majestic oak and ash and birch,
woodland in its wilder and more imposing form. Even to-day, though most
of the primeval forest has been cut down, and manufacturing villages
have sprung up on the ancient sylvan sites, the tourist starting above
Todmorden would not, in a walk of thirty miles by the river side, be
able to lose sight of the picturesque and far-stretching belts of
woodland scenery. It is yet emphatically the _Caoill-dur_, the water
winding through the woods. Of course, in this case the Saxons took up
the word as they found it in use among the conquered Celts. Then, to
strengthen this conjecture, the very first tributary brook on the
north--of size and importance, at least, to give a name to the
valley--joining the parent stream is the Colden or Caldene, which
probably is the _Caoill-dene_, the woodland valley. The reader will
judge how accurately the word describes this lonely mountain glen when
he is told that at a distance the eye can scarcely catch a flash of the
waters of this stream as they hurry down this wild sylvan region, so
thickly is it overshadowed by a forest of ash and birch. A topographical
word derived from two languages is rare in this part, and when we come
across one it is generally a Saxon grafted on the more primitive Celtic
name of mountain or river. Colden or Caldene is probably an instance to
the point.
That _caoill_ was contracted to, or commonly pronounced, _cal_ may be
pretty safely supposed, when we know that in the Latinised form or
transformation it became _cal_, as in Caledonii, that is,
_Caoill-daoin_, the people inhabiting the woods. The reader will
perceive that _caoill_ is closely akin to the Greek κᾶλον, also
signifying a wood.
The Calder, which is a very sinuous stream, runs a most irregular but
charmingly diversified course as it winds under scout and scar, now
gliding smoothly past belts of woodland or by long stretches of fair
pastoral field, or again in narrower channel foaming more rapidly
through wild ravine or over rocky weir, only again to slip into more
tranquil waters, pleasantly gladdening as with quiet familiarity village
and thorpe. Leaving Todmorden the tourist passes on the right the
precipitous woods of Erringden, the dene or valley of the Irringas,
where of yore probably dwelt a branch of the family of the Aruns; and on
the other hand, towering far away on the heights to the north may be
seen the bleak, solitary, altar-like mass of rock known as Llads-Law,
conjectured by some to be a Druidical ruin. The Celt lived here beyond
all doubt, though but few are the traces he has left behind in cromlech
or cairn, in speech or blood. The Roman, we know, cut his way through
the primeval forests, and on these very mountains laid down his military
roads, the long lines of which we can map out, and oft-times does the
plough turn up fragments of rusted sword and broken spear which tell how
the pierced hand had to drop them for ever. On and near these roads,
after the iron legions had ceased to tramp them, sprung up many a Saxon
“ton” or town and Danish “by.” There, on the one hand, upon the heights
still difficult to scale except to born mountaineers, is perched Saxon
Heptonstall, with its grand old tower of Saint Thomas à Becket and
antique homesteads clustering around; and yonder, on the far opposite
slope to the south-east, is Danish Sowerby, taking us back in thought to
the times when the Vikings settled down and fortified their “by” in the
forest fastnesses of the hill. Here, too, to this Sowerby came later the
Earl of Warren and built himself a castle, and took to his own
possession vast tracts of mountain slope and wooded glen, which long
retained the name of the Forest of Hardwick, and therein he hunted in
right baronial style the boar and the wild deer. Sowerby with its Danish
and Norman memories has a not uninteresting story in later ages, and is
not a little proud in having given birth to John Tillotson, one of
England’s most illustrious primates. Haugh-End, the quaint old house
where he was born, is on the southern slope of the hill, and many the
pilgrims who turn aside to have a look at the grey old roof sheltered
behind the trees and the ivied high wall. Not a bow-shot from the
riverside, and nearly opposite Sowerby, is Eawood Hall, the birthplace
of Bishop Ferrar, the martyr. Eawood, snugly and picturesquely nestled
under the greenwood scars of Midgley, has a conspicuous place in the
ecclesiastical history of the county. Here John Wesley preached on
several occasions, on one of which he remarked, “I preached to near an
hour after sunset. The calmness of the evening agreed well with the
seriousness of the people; every one of whom seemed to drink in the Word
of God as a thirsty land the refreshing showers.” William Grimshaw,
curate of Todmorden and afterwards incumbent of Haworth, a not unworthy
coadjutor of Whitefield and the Wesleys, married his first wife from
this place, and often preached and stayed here on his home-missionary
tours. Not more than a couple of miles away is the birthplace of John
Foster, whose Essays at one time had a considerable reputation. Close to
Eawood there is many a neighbouring hall of more than local interest,
one especially, Brearley Hall, beautifully embosomed in the trees on a
gentle eminence on the north side of the river, and formerly the seat of
a younger branch of the Lacy family. About half an hour’s walk down the
valley brings the pedestrian to Daisy Bank Wood, and Chaucer’s favourite
flower still grows on the daisied bank, and there stands yet the
old-fashioned house below the wood where was born, in the reign of
Elizabeth, Henry Briggs, of logarithm renown, and the first Savilian
professor of geometry at the University of Oxford.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration: text decoration]
Archaeology a Confirmation of Historic and Religious Truth.[68]
BY THE REV. GEORGE HUNTINGTON, M.A., _Rector of Tenby_.
JEREMIAH’S lot was cast in the darkest period of his country’s history.
He was called on to declare the Divine will to the exiles in Babylon and
the remnant in Palestine. In the context he is warning his countrymen
against false prophets and false priests who were deceiving the people
by proclaiming peace when there was no peace. He urges them to inquire
after the ancient faith revealed to the patriarchs and prophets of old.
Thus, and thus only, would they find “rest for their souls.”
The metaphor is a striking one; it is that of a traveller who comes to a
place where several roads meet. He hesitates till he discerns the most
beaten track, or till he hails another traveller from whom he can ask
his way. Those were days of doubt and difficulty, when the royal
counsellors were urging conformity to the idolatrous rites of the
powerful nations around them as a policy of wisdom and conciliation. But
Jeremiah regarded it as nothing less than apostasy. Those idolatries
were abomination in the sight of Jehovah. Hence the people must return
to the worship of the one true God--the God “who made heaven and earth,”
to be true to the covenant which “He made with Abraham, the oath which
He swore unto Isaac, and confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to
Israel for an everlasting covenant.”
But the text applies to ourselves. The days in which our lot is cast are
days of doubt and difficulty--days when ancient landmarks are being
removed, and the beaten tracks so effaced as almost to be indiscernible.
So that we may well stand, like the traveller in the metaphor, to see
and ask for the old paths, for the good way, amid the clouds of
scepticism and unbelief which gather athwart our pathways; amid the
Babel of voices saying “Who will show us the good?” we may say, with the
Psalmist, “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.”
For what are those ways, those old paths, that good way, but the
original revelation of God as our Father in heaven--subsequently
manifested in the Person of His Incarnate Son as the Revealer of the
Divine will, in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, acting through the
Church as His agent for making His “ways known to the sons of men.”
“The history of the race of Adam before the Advent,” says a great
statesman,[69] “is the history of a long and varied, but incessant
preparation for the Advent;” and the history of the human race since the
Advent, it may be added, is but a record of the gradual but sure
progress of that kingdom which Christ came to establish upon earth, an
earnest of the time when the kingdoms of this world shall have become
the kingdoms of God and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and
ever as King of kings and Lord of lords.
And to this, as it seems to me, all historical research as well as
scientific discovery points. There are those who to exalt Christianity
would represent the world as in total darkness before the Advent. The
truer estimate of the Gospels shows us that Christ was in fact the “true
Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” The
investigation of the records of the past assures us of this fact,
confirms us in this belief, proves to us that God never “left Himself
without witness,” teaches us that Christ drew as it were into a focus
all the truths that men had previously held, only freeing them from
error and bringing them into clearer light. “The words,” says a great
scholar,[70] “by which God was known in the far-off ages are but mere
words; but they bring before us with all the vividness of an event which
we witnessed ourselves but yesterday, the ancestors of the whole Aryan
race, thousands of years, it may be, before Homer and the Vedas,
worshipping an unseen Being under the self-same name, the best, the most
exalted name they could find in their vocabulary.” Plutarch wrote ages
ago: “If you travel through the whole world, well, you may find cities
without walls, without literature, without kings, moneyless, and such as
desire no coin; which know not what theatres or public halls or bodily
exercise mean; but never was there, nor ever shall be, any one city seen
without temple, church, or chapel, without some God or other, which
useth no prayers, nor oaths, no prophecies and divinations, no
sacrifices either to obtain good blessings, or to avert heavy curses and
calamities. Nay, methinks a man should sooner find a city built in the
air without any plot of ground whereon it is seated than any
commonwealth altogether void of religion.... This is that containeth and
holdeth together all human society, this is the foundation prop and stay
of all.”[71]
Brethren of the Archæological Association, I venture to think that you
will not fail to see the application of these remarks to your own
researches, and to the consequences which are happily arising from these
researches. Of course I speak of archæology in its widest sense. Your
investigations of the records of antiquity, your examination of ancient
remains, your discovery of the sites and foundations of temples, tombs,
altars, and cromlechs, confirm the testimony of philologists,
historians, and philosophers, nay the witness of the human heart; they
all speak with more or less clearness of a belief in the Supreme Being,
of a longing for a clearer revelation of His will, of a hope of
immortality, of a sense of sin and desire for reconciliation with Him,
obscured it may be, often perverted, debased by superstitious, cruel,
and unholy rites, sometimes feebly held, but never totally lost.
And the same observations apply to the attestation by archæology to the
scriptural records. Nothing is more remarkable than the recovery of
ancient monuments, unless it be the deductions of science which are
marking the intellectual activity of the age. What a revelation was that
finding of the famous Rosetta stone[72] which by its triple inscription
in the Sacred, the popular Egyptian, and the Greek languages, gave the
key to unlock the mysteries of figure writing, so that thanks to
Egyptologists, who are but archæologists under a local name, we may
picture to ourselves the Egypt of the Pyramids, of Abraham, of Joseph,
and the Exodus, and see the Pharaohs in their colossal palaces, and
learn something of that wisdom of the Egyptians in which we are told
“Moses was learned.” Think, too, how the unshapely mounds on the banks
of the Euphrates have given up their treasures, so that we may now know
the history of those mighty empires which each in its day exercised its
influence on the chosen people, and through that chosen people on the
destinies of the Church. Think of the excavations of a Layard, the
researches of a Rawlinson in Babylon and Assyria, and of the Palestine
explorers, which bring before us not only the land of the Judges and the
Kings, but the scenes of the earthly ministry of the Son of God Himself.
And what is it but archæology that led to the exhuming of those
long-lost cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii which have thrown such a
lurid glare on the morals of the Græco-Roman world, confirming as it
does the keen satires not only of a Juvenal or a Persius, but the
mournful testimony of a Paul, showing as nothing else could show the
world’s need of a divine Saviour, and a newer and fuller revelation of
the Divine will.
Or think of the identification of the sites of classic Troy and Mycenæ
by Dr. Schliemann, and of the discoveries of Mr. Wood at Ephesus, and of
Mr. Ramsay in Phrygia. These investigations might seem to have only an
indirect reference to Christianity, but they may help to attest the
accuracy of the Scripture record and of the history of the isapostolic
Church. Asia Minor, be it remembered, was, next to Palestine, the
theatre of the earliest apostolic labours; Ephesus was the city wherein
St. Paul encountered the worshippers of the Temple of the world-renowned
Artemis. To the Ephesians he addressed one of his most remarkable
epistles, to Ephesus he sent his son in the faith, Timothy; over the
Ephesian Church St. John presided as the survivor of the Twelve; in
Ephesus was held the third of the Œcumenical Councils. Who knows,
then, what the archæology of the future may not discover in these
interesting regions? What treasures may not yet be buried under those
shapeless masses, the accumulations of ages of neglect? Who knows what
light they may not shed on the annals of a hoary antiquity in which we
of this busy nineteenth century may be vitally interested?--interested
as we “ask for the old paths.”
The same may be said of the Catacombs of Rome, with their simple and
unstudied testimony to the faith of the early Christian martyrs, so
strangely contrasting with the sad records of the pagan world, so that,
as has well been said, “if you cross the Appian Way, from the Columbaria
to the Catacombs, and place side by side the heathen and the Christian
epitaphs, you may read, in those authentic registers, how, without
Christ, death meant despair; with Christ, peace.”
Think again of the recovery of MSS. I need name but one, the Codex
Sinaiticus, found seemingly by a lucky accident, but one which has
enabled New Testament scholars to establish the truest readings of the
Gospels and the Epistles. Nor is the discovery of an authentic copy of
that ancient treatise which goes by the name of the “Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles” without its influence on Christian archæology. It
confirms what the examination of the ancient liturgies of ancient altars
and altar vessels--a distinct branch of your science--teaches us, the
testimony of a Pliny and a Justin as to what primitive Christian worship
really was; it assures the Churchman of the nineteenth century that in
all essentials of faith and worship he is one with the Church of the
first century, the Church of the Apostles, the Church of Pentecost, the
Church of Christ from the beginning.
But you are British archæologists; if it pleases you to visit my native
county of York, you will doubtless direct your steps to Goodmanham, or
Godmundenham, as its ancient name betokened--the Protection of the Gods.
There in that little East Riding village archæology verified the
identity of the font in which Paulinus baptized the heathen priest
Coifi, with a trough out of which for years farmers had fed their swine.
What a commentary on the spread of Christianity, and the need of
Christianity, so early as the seventh century in the northern parts of
our island is the beautiful story told by the Venerable Bede.[73] “The
present life of man,” said the aged counsellor Coifi to his sovereign,
“O king, seems to me in comparison of that time which is unknown to us,
like the swift flight of the sparrow through the room wherein you sit at
supper in winter with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in
the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the
sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately out at another,
whilst he is within is safe from the wintry storm, but after a short
space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the
dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a
short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly
ignorant. If, therefore, the new doctrine contains something more
certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.” In contempt of his
former superstition, the king and his counsellors assenting, we are
told, the arch-priest mounted the royal war-horse, armed himself with a
spear, things otherwise unlawful, and profaned the temple by casting at
the idol his spear; and then both king and counsellor were baptized and
professed the faith of Christ.[74]
Authorities have been divided as to the diffusion of Christianity in
Britain, and as to the independence of the ancient British Church.
Archæology, on the other hand, by its identification of sacred sites by
the nomenclature of native saints, by the designation of parishes and
churches, has done much to settle these questions. The science of
archæology has discovered Christian symbols, traced British bishops to
far-distant Councils;[75] as at Carleon, and Bangor, and elsewhere, it
has unfolded the records of a community acting under its own prelates
and arch-prelates, enjoying its own native customs, adhering to its own
independent rites.
Archæology is, in its widest sense, no mere question of curious
antiquities, it is a confirmation of historic and religious truth. It
aids the devout in the inquiry after the old ways in which the saints of
God have trod. It is a teaching and a walking in that good way in which
patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, found rest to their
souls. To the Jews of Jeremiah’s days God promised rest from their
enemies in their own land of promise, rest in the assured favour of
Jehovah. To us Christ promises rest, rest from disquieting doubts and
fears, rest in the sense of sins forgiven, rest in communion and union
with God and Christ, in the mystical fellowship of His Body, the Church,
rest hereafter in our heavenly home.
Brethren, the appeal of Christ is to the individual heart, the witness
to the Saviour is in the testimony of conscience, the heart and life,
the presence of His Spirit within the soul. May I beg you, then, to ask
for the old paths of repentance and faith, for the good way that leadeth
to life, to walk therein; to consecrate your researches to the highest
and noblest of purposes, the furtherance of truth and the glory of God;
and so, to use again the words of the prophet in the text, “ye shall
find rest for your souls.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
Johnson and Garrick.
_A JEU D’ESPRIT[76] BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS._
_PART II._
(_Continued from p. 175._)
CONTINUING the dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gibbon from the
point where we broke off in our last, the _jeu d’esprit_ proceeds:--
GIBBON.--Garrick had some flippancy of parts, to be sure, and was brisk
and lively in company, and by the help of mimickry and story-telling
made himself a pleasant companion; but here, the whole world gave the
superiority to Foote, and Garrick himself appears to have felt as if his
genius was rebuked by the superior powers of Foote. It has been often
observed, that Garrick never dared to enter into competition with him,
but was content to act an under part to bring Foote out.
JOHNSON.--That this conduct of Garrick’s might be interpreted by the
gross minds of Foote and his friends as if he was afraid to encounter
him, I can easily imagine. Of the natural superiority of Garrick over
Foote, this conduct is an instance; he disdained entering into
competition with such a fellow, and made him the buffoon of the company,
or, as you may say, brought him out, and what was at last brought out
but coarse jests and vulgar merriment, indecency, and impiety, a
relation of events which, upon the face of them, could never have
happened, characters grossly conceived and as coarsely represented.
Foote was even no mimick; he went out of himself, it is true, but
without going into another man; he was excelled by Garrick even in this,
which is considered as Foote’s greatest excellence. Garrick, besides his
exact imitation of the voice and gestures of his original, to a degree
of refinement of which Foote had no conception, exhibited the mind and
mode of thinking of the person imitated. Besides, Garrick confined his
powers within the limits of decency: he had a character to preserve,
Foote had none. By Foote’s buffoonery and broadfaced merriment, private
friendship, public decency, and everything estimable amongst men, were
trod under foot. We all know the difference of their reception in the
world. No man, however high in rank or literature, but was proud to know
Garrick, and was glad to have him at his table; no man ever considered
or treated Garrick as a player; he may be said to have stepped out of
his own rank into an higher, and by raising himself he raised the rank
of his profession. At a convivial table his exhilarating powers were
unrivalled; he was lively, entertaining, quick in discerning the
ridicule of life, and as ready in representing it, and on graver
subjects there were few topics on which he could not bear a part. It is
injurious to the character of Garrick to be named in the same breath
with Foote. That Foote was admitted sometimes into good company (to do
the man what credit I can) I will allow, but then it was merely to play
tricks; Foote’s merriment was that of a buffoon, and Garrick’s that of a
gentleman.
G.--I have been told, on the contrary, that Garrick in company had not
the easy manners of a gentleman.
J.--Sir, I do not know what you may have been told, or what your ideas
may be of the manners of gentlemen. Garrick had no vulgarity in his
manners; it is true, he had not the airiness of a fop, nor did he assume
an affected indifference to what was passing; he did not lounge from the
table to the window, and from thence to the fire, or whilst you were
addressing your discourse to him, turn from you, and talk to his next
neighbour, or give any indication that he was tired of your company. If
such manners form your ideas of a fine gentleman, Garrick certainly had
them not.
G.--I mean that Garrick was more overawed by the presence of the great,
and more obsequious to rank than Foote, who considered himself as their
equal, and treated them with the same familiarity as they treated each
other.
J.--He did so, and what did the fellow get by it? The grossness of his
mind prevented him from seeing that this familiarity was merely suffered
as they would play with a dog. He got no ground by affecting to call
peers by their surnames. The foolish fellow fancied, that lowering them
was raising himself to their level. This affectation of familiarity with
the great, this childish ambition of momentary exaltation, obtained by
the neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the
barriers between one order of society and another, only showed his folly
and meanness; he did not see that by encroaching on others’ dignity, he
puts himself in their power, either to be repelled with helpless
indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension. Garrick by paying
due regard to rank respected himself; what he gave was returned, and
what was returned he kept for ever. His advancement was on firm ground;
he was recognised in public as well as respected in private, and as no
man was ever more courted or better received by the public, so no man
was ever less spoiled by its flattery. Garrick continued advancing to
the last, till he had acquired every advantage that high birth could
bestow, except the precedence of going into the room, but when he was
there he was treated with as much attention as the first man at the
table. It is to the credit of Garrick that he never laid any claim to
this distinction; it was as voluntarily allowed as if it had been his
birthright. In this, I confess, I looked on David with some degree of
envy, not so much for the respect he received as for the manner of its
being acquired: what fell into his lap unsought, I have been forced to
claim. I began the world by fighting my way. There was something about
me that invited insult, or at least a disposition to neglect, and I was
equally disposed to repel insult, and to claim attention, and, I fear,
continue too much in this disposition now it is no longer necessary; I
receive at present as much favour as I have a right to expect. I am not
one of the complainers of the neglect of merit.
G.--_Your_ pretensions, Dr. Johnson, nobody will dispute; I cannot place
Garrick on the same footing: your reputation will continue increasing
after your death. When Garrick will be totally forgot, you will be for
ever considered as a classic.
J.--Enough, sir, enough; the company will be better pleased to see us
quarrel than bandying compliments.
G.--But you must allow, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick was too much a slave
to fame, or rather to the mean ambition of living with the great,
terribly afraid of making himself cheap with them; by which he debarred
himself from much pleasant society. Employing so much attention and so
much management upon such little things, implies, I think, a little
mind. It was observed by his friend Coleman that he never went into
company but with a plot how to get out of it; he was every minute called
out, and went off or returned as there was, or was not, a probability of
his shining.
J.--In regard to his mean ambition, as you call it, of living with the
great, what was the boast of Pope, and is every man’s wish, can be no
reproach to Garrick; he who says he despises it, knows he lies. That
Garrick husbanded his fame, the fame which he had justly acquired, both
at the theatre and at the table, is not denied; but where is the blame
either in the one or the other of leaving as little as possible to
chance? Besides, sir, consider what you have said; you first deny
Garrick’s pretensions to fame, and then accuse him of too great an
attention to preserve what he never possessed.
G.--I don’t understand.
J.--I can’t help that, sir.
G.--Well but, Dr. Johnson, you will not vindicate him in his over and
above attention to his fame, his inordinate desire to exhibit himself to
new men, like a coquet ever seeking after new conquests, to the total
neglect of old friends and admirers:
“He threw off his friends, like a huntsman his pack:”
always looking out for new game.
J.--When you have quoted the line from Goldsmith, you ought, in fairness
to have given what followed,
“He knew when he pleased, he could whistle them back:”
which implies at least that he possessed a power over other men’s minds
approaching to fascination. But consider, sir, what is to be done. Here
is a man, whom every other man desired to know. Garrick could not
receive and cultivate all, according to each man’s conception of his own
value: we are all apt enough to consider ourselves as possessing a right
to be exempted from the common crowd. Besides, sir, I do not see why
that should be imputed to him as a crime which we all so irresistibly
feel and practise; we all make a greater exertion in the presence of new
men than old acquaintance; it is undoubtedly true that Garrick divided
his attention among so many, that but little remained to the share of an
individual: like the extension and dissipation of water into dew, there
was not quantity united sufficiently to quench any man’s thirst; but
this is the inevitable state of things; Garrick no more than any other
man could unite what was in their nature incompatible.
G.--But Garrick was by this means not only excluded from real
friendship, but also accused of treating those whom he called friends
with insincerity and double dealings.
J.--Sir, it is not true; his character in that respect is misunderstood:
Garrick was, to be sure, very ready in promising, but he intended at
that time to fulfil his promise; he intended no deceit; his politeness,
or his good nature, call it which you will, made him unwilling to deny,
he wanted the courage to say _No_, even to unreasonable demands. This
was the great error of his life; by raising expectations which he did
not, perhaps could not, gratify, he made enemies; at the same time it
must be remembered that this error proceeded from the same cause which
produced many of his virtues. Friendships from warmth of temper too
suddenly taken up, and too violent to continue, ended, as they were like
to do, in disappointment; enmity succeeded disappointment, his friends
became his enemies, and those having been fostered in his bosom, knew
well his sensibility to reproach, and they took care that he should be
amply supplied with such bitter potions as they were capable of
administering. Their impotent efforts he ought to have despised, but he
felt them; nor did he affect insensibility.
G.--And that sensibility probably shortened his life.
J.--No, sir, he died of a disorder of which you or any other man may die
without being killed by too much sensibility.
G.--But you will allow, however, that this sensibility, those fine
feelings, made him the great actor he was.
J.--This is all cant, fit only for kitchen wenches and chamber maids;
Garrick’s trade was to represent passion, not to feel it. Ask Reynolds,
whether he felt the distress of Count Ugolino, when he drew it.
G.--But surely he feels the passion at the moment he is representing it.
J.--About as much as Punch feels. That Garrick himself gave in to this
foppery of feelings, I can easily believe; but he knew at the time that
he lied. He might think it right, as far as I know, to have what fools
imagined he ought to have; but it is amazing that anyone should be so
ignorant as to think that an actor will risk his reputation by depending
upon the feelings, that may be excited in the presence of 200 people, on
the repetition of certain words which he has repeated 200 times before
in what actors call their study. No, sir, Garrick left nothing to
chance; every gesture, every expression of countenance, and variation of
voice, was settled in his closet, before he set his foot upon the stage.
[Illustration: text decoration]
MR. ALEXANDER GARDNER, of Paisley, has in hand a little series of
books, which he proposes to name “The Antiquarian Library.” The
series will consist chiefly of original works, and will be
introduced by the following books from the pen of Mr. William
Andrews: “Gibbet Lore: Remarkable Chapters in the Annals of Great
Britain and Ireland,” “Obsolete Punishments,” “History of Bells and
Wells: Their History, Legends, Superstitions, Folk-lore, and
Poetry.”
The History of Gilds.
BY CORNELIUS WALFORD, F.S.S., _Barrister-at-Law_.
_PART IV._
(_Continued from p. 181._)