whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrims did not often
inquire. Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians of the Holy
Land, and that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin Mary, and tears of
St. Peter, were also to be had, carefully enclosed in little caskets,
which the pious might wear in their bosoms. After the tears the next
most precious relics were drops of the blood of Jesus and the martyrs.
Hair and toe-nails were also in great repute, and were sold at
extravagant prices. Thousands of pilgrims annually visited Palestine in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to purchase pretended relics for the
home market. The majority of them had no other means of subsistence than
the profits thus obtained. Many a nail, cut from the filthy foot of some
unscrupulous ecclesiastic, was sold at a diamond's price, within six
months after its severance from its parent toe, upon the supposition
that it had once belonged to a saint. Peter's toes were uncommonly
prolific, for there were nails enough in Europe, at the time of the
Council of Clermont, to have filled a sack, all of which were devoutly
believed to have grown on the sacred feet of that great apostle. Some of
them are still shown in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The pious come
from a distance of a hundred German miles to feast their eyes upon them.
At Port Royal, in Paris, is kept with great care a thorn, which the
priests of that seminary assert to be one of the identical thorns that
bound the holy head of the Son of God. How it came there, and by whom
it was preserved, has never been explained. This is the famous thorn,
celebrated in the long dissensions of the Jansenists and the Molenists,
and which worked the miraculous cure upon Mademoiselle Perrier: by
merely kissing it, she was cured of a disease of the eyes of long
standing. [Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.]
What traveller is unacquainted with the Santa Scala, or Holy Stairs, at
Rome? They were brought from Jerusalem along with the true cross, by the
Empress Helen, and were taken from the house which, according to popular
tradition, was inhabited by Pontius Pilate. They are said to be the
steps which Jesus ascended and descended when brought into the presence
of the Roman governor. They are held in the greatest veneration at Rome:
it is sacrilegious to walk upon them. The knees of the faithful must
alone touch them in ascending or descending, and that only after they
have reverentially kissed them.
Europe still swarms with these religious relics. There is hardly a Roman
Catholic church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, or Belgium, without
one or more of them. Even the poorly endowed churches of the villages
boast the possession of miraculous thigh-bones of the innumerable
saints of the Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of the veritable
chasse, or thigh-bone of Charlemagne, which cures lameness. Halle has a
thighbone of the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or eight, all said to be
undoubted relics. Brussels at one time preserved, and perhaps does now,
the teeth of St. Gudule. The faithful, who suffered from the tooth-ache,
had only to pray, look at them, and be cured. Some of these holy bones
have been buried in different parts of the Continent. After a certain
lapse of time, water is said to ooze from them, which soon forms a
spring, and cures all the diseases of the faithful. At a church in
Halle, there is a famous thigh-bone, which cures barrenness in women. Of
this bone, which is under the special superintendence of the Virgin, a
pleasant story is related by the incredulous. There resided at Ghent
a couple who were blessed with all the riches of this world, but whose
happiness was sore troubled by the want of children. Great was the
grief of the lady, who was both beautiful and loving, and many her
lamentations to her husband. The latter, annoyed by her unceasing
sorrow, advised her to make a pilgrimage to the celebrated chasse of
the Virgin. She went, was absent a week, and returned with a face all
radiant with joy and pleasure. Her lamentations ceased, and, in nine
months afterwards, she brought forth a son. But, oh! the instability of
human joys! The babe, so long desired and so greatly beloved, survived
but a few months. Two years passed over the heads of the disconsolate
couple, and no second child appeared to cheer their fire-side. A third
year passed away with the same result, and the lady once more began to
weep. "Cheer up, my love," said her husband, "and go to the holy chasse,
at Halle; perhaps the Virgin will again listen to your prayers." The
lady took courage at the thought, wiped away her tears, and proceeded on
the morrow towards Halle. She was absent only three days, and returned
home sad, weeping, and sorrow-stricken. "What is the matter?" said
her husband; "is the Virgin unwilling to listen to your prayers?" "The
Virgin is willing enough," said the disconsolate wife, "and will do what
she can for me; but I shall never have any more children! The priest!
the priest!--He is gone from Halle, and nobody knows where to find him!"
It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in all
countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any persons who have
been much spoken of, even for their crimes. When William Longbeard,
leader of the populace of London, in the reign of Richard I, was hanged
at Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shown to obtain a hair from
his head, or a shred from his garments. Women came from Essex, Kent,
Suffolk, Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to collect the mould
at the foot of his gallows. A hair of his beard was believed to preserve
from evil spirits, and a piece of his clothes from aches and pains.
In more modern days, a similar avidity was shown to obtain a relic of
the luckless Masaniello, the fisherman of Naples. After he had been
raised by mob favour to a height of power more despotic than monarch
ever wielded, he was shot by the same populace in the streets, as if he
had been a mad dog. His headless trunk was dragged through the mire for
several hours, and cast at night-fall into the city ditch. On the morrow
the tide of popular feeling turned once more in his favour. His
corpse was sought, arrayed in royal robes, and buried magnificently
by torch-light in the cathedral, ten thousand armed men, and as many
mourners, attending at the ceremony. The fisherman's dress which he had
worn was rent into shreds by the crowd, to be preserved as relics; the
door of his hut was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and eagerly
cut up into small pieces, to be made into images, caskets, and other
mementos. The scanty furniture of his poor abode became of more value
than the adornments of a palace; the ground he had walked upon was
considered sacred, and, being collected in small phials, was sold at its
weight in gold, and worn in the bosom as an amulet.
Almost as extraordinary was the frenzy manifested by the populace of
Paris on the execution of the atrocious Marchioness de Brinvilliers.
There were grounds for the popular wonder in the case of Masaniello,
who was unstained with personal crimes. But the career of Madame de
Brinvilliers was of a nature to excite no other feelings than disgust
and abhorrence. She was convicted of poisoning several persons, and
sentenced to be burned in the Place de Greve, and to have her ashes
scattered to the winds. On the day of her execution, the populace,
struck by her gracefulness and beauty, inveighed against the severity of
her sentence. Their pity soon increased to admiration, and, ere evening,
she was considered a saint. Her ashes were industriously collected, even
the charred wood, which had aided to consume her, was eagerly purchased
by the populace. Her ashes were thought to preserve from witchcraft.
In England many persons have a singular love for the relics of thieves
and murderers, or other great criminals. The ropes with which they have
been hanged are very often bought by collectors at a guinea per foot.
Great sums were paid for the rope which hanged Dr. Dodd, and for those
more recently which did justice upon Mr. Fauntleroy for forgery, and
on Thurtell for the murder of Mr. Weare. The murder of Maria Marten,
by Corder, in the year 1828, excited the greatest interest all over the
country. People came from Wales and Scotland, and even from Ireland, to
visit the barn where the body of the murdered woman was buried. Every
one of them was anxious to carry away some memorial of his visit. Pieces
of the barn-door, tiles from the roof, and, above all, the clothes of
the poor victim, were eagerly sought after. A lock of her hair was sold
for two guineas, and the purchaser thought himself fortunate in getting
it so cheaply.
So great was the concourse of people to visit the house in Camberwell
Lane, where Greenacre murdered Hannah Brown, in 1837, that it was found
necessary to station a strong detachment of police on the spot. The
crowd was so eager to obtain a relic of the house of this atrocious
criminal, that the police were obliged to employ force to prevent the
tables and chairs, and even the doors, from being carried away.
In earlier times, a singular superstition was attached to the hand of
a criminal who had suffered execution. It was thought that by merely
rubbing the dead hand on the body, the patient afflicted with the king's
evil would be instantly cured. The executioner at Newgate, sixty or
seventy years ago, derived no inconsiderable revenue from this foolish
practice. The possession of the hand was thought to be of still greater
efficacy in the cure of diseases and the prevention of misfortunes. In
the time of Charles II as much as ten guineas was thought a small price
for one of these disgusting relics.
When the maniac, Thom, or Courtenay, was shot, in the spring of 1838,
the relic-hunters were immediately in motion to obtain a memento of so
extraordinary an individual. His long, black beard and hair, which were
cut off by the surgeons, fell into the hands of his disciples, by
whom they are treasured with the utmost reverence. A lock of his hair
commands a great price, not only amongst his followers, but among the
more wealthy inhabitants of Canterbury and its neighbourhood. The tree
against which he fell when he was shot, has already been stripped of all
its bark by the curious, and bids fair to be entirely demolished within
a twelvemonth. A letter, with his signature to it, is paid for in gold
coins; and his favourite horse promises to become as celebrated as his
master. Parties of ladies and gentlemen have come to Boughton from a
distance of a hundred and fifty miles, to visit the scene of that fatal
affray, and stroke on the back the horse of the "mad Knight of Malta."
If a strict watch had not been kept over his grave for months, the body
would have been disinterred, and the bones carried away as memorials.
Among the Chinese no relics are more valued than the boots which have
been worn by an upright magistrate. In Davis's interesting Description
of the Empire of China, we are informed, that whenever a judge of
unusual integrity resigns his situation, the people all congregate to
do him honour. If he leaves the city where he has presided, the crowd
accompany him from his residence to the gates, where his boots are drawn
off with great ceremony, to be preserved in the hall of justice. Their
place is immediately supplied by a new pair, which, in their turn, are
drawn off to make room for others before he has worn them five minutes,
it being considered sufficient to consecrate them that he should have
merely drawn them on.
Among the most favourite relics of modern times, in Europe, are
Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, Napoleon's willow, and the table at
Waterloo, on which the Emperor wrote his despatches. Snuffboxes of
Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, are comparatively rare, though there are
doubtless more of them in the market than were ever made of the wood
planted by the great bard. Many a piece of alien wood passes under this
name. The same may be said of Napoleon's table at Waterloo. The original
has long since been destroyed, and a round dozen of counterfeits along
with it. Many preserve the simple stick of wood; others have them cut
into brooches and every variety of ornament; but by far the greater
number prefer them as snuff-boxes. In France they are made into
bonbonnieres, and are much esteemed by the many thousands whose cheeks
still glow, and whose eyes still sparkle at the name of Napoleon.
Bullets from the field of Waterloo, and buttons from the coats of the
soldiers who fell in the fight, are still favourite relics in Europe.
But the same ingenuity which found new tables after the old one was
destroyed, has cast new bullets for the curious. Many a one who thinks
himself the possessor of a bullet which aided in giving peace to the
world on that memorable day, is the owner of a dump, first extracted
from the ore a dozen years afterwards. Let all lovers of genuine relics
look well to their money before they part with it to the ciceroni that
swarm in the village of Waterloo.
Few travellers stop at the lonely isle of St. Helena, without cutting
a twig from the willow that droops over the grave of Napoleon. Many
of them have since been planted in different parts of Europe, and have
grown into trees as large as their parent. Relic-hunters, who are unable
to procure a twig of the original, are content with one from these.
Several of them are growing in the neighbourhood of London, more prized
by their cultivators than any other tree in their gardens. But in
relics, as in everything else, there is the use and the abuse. The
undoubted relics of great men, or great events, will always possess
attractions for the thinking and refined. There are few who would
not join with Cowley in the extravagant wish introduced in his lines
"written while sitting in a chair made of the remains of the ship in
which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world:"--
And I myself, who now love quiet too,
Almost as much as any chair can do,
Would yet a journey take
An old wheel of that chariot to see,
Which Phaeton so rashly brake.
MODERN PROPHECIES.
As epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times spread over
the nations. The most remarkable was that which seized Christendom about
the middle of the tenth century. Numbers of fanatics appeared in France,
Germany, and Italy at that time, preaching that the thousand years
prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the world's duration, were
about to expire, and that the Son of Man would appear in the clouds
to judge the godly and the ungodly. The delusion appears to have been
discouraged by the church, but it nevertheless spread rapidly among the
people. [See Gibbon and Voltaire for further notice of this subject.]
The scene of the last judgment was expected to be at Jerusalem. In
the year 999, the number of pilgrims proceeding eastward, to await the
coming of the Lord in that city, was so great that they were compared to
a desolating army. Most of them sold their goods and possessions before
they quitted Europe, and lived upon the proceeds in the Holy Land.
Buildings of every sort were suffered to fall into ruins. It was thought
useless to repair them, when the end of the world was so near. Many
noble edifices were deliberately pulled down. Even churches, usually
so well maintained, shared the general neglect. Knights, citizens, and
serfs, travelled eastwards in company, taking with them their wives and
children, singing psalms as they went, and looking with fearful eyes
upon the sky, which they expected each minute to open, to let the Son of
God descend in his glory.
During the thousandth year the number of pilgrims increased. Most of
them were smitten with terror as with a plague. Every phenomenon of
nature filled them with alarm. A thunder-storm sent them all upon their
knees in mid-march. It was the opinion that thunder was the voice of
God, announcing the day of judgment. Numbers expected the earth to
open, and give up its dead at the sound. Every meteor in the sky seen
at Jerusalem brought the whole Christian population into the streets to
weep and pray. The pilgrims on the road were in the same alarm:--
Lorsque, pendant la nuit, un globe de lumiere
S'echappa quelquefois de la voute des cieux,
Et traca dans sa chute un long sillon de feux,
La troupe suspendit sa marche solitaire.
[Charlemagne. Pomme Epique, par Lucien Buonaparte.]
Fanatic preachers kept up the flame of terror. Every shooting star
furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the sublimity of the
approaching judgment was the principal topic.
The appearance of comets has been often thought to foretell the speedy
dissolution of this world. Part of this belief still exists; but
the comet is no longer looked upon as the sign, but the agent of
destruction. So lately as in the year 1832 the greatest alarm spread
over the Continent of Europe, especially in Germany, lest the comet,
whose appearance was then foretold by astronomers, should destroy the
earth. The danger of our globe was gravely discussed. Many persons
refrained from undertaking or concluding any business during that year,
in consequence solely of their apprehension that this terrible comet
would dash us and our world to atoms.
During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the
prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come.
Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all
sorts are rife on such occasions, and are readily believed, whether for
good or evil. During the great plague, which ravaged all Europe, between
the years 1345 and 1350, it was generally considered that the end of
the world was at hand. Pretended prophets were to be found in all the
principal cities of Germany, France, and Italy, predicting that within
ten years the trump of the Archangel would sound, and the Saviour appear
in the clouds to call the earth to judgment.
No little consternation was created in London in 1736 by the prophecy of
the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in that year, on
the 13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the appointed day to
Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to see the destruction
of London, which was to be the "beginning of the end." A satirical
account of this folly is given in Swift's Miscellanies, vol. iii.
entitled, "A True and Faithful Narrative of what passed in London on a
Rumour of the Day of Judgment." An authentic narrative of this delusion
would be interesting; but this solemn witticism of Pope and Gay is not
to be depended upon.
In the year 1761 the citizens of London were again frightened out of
their wits by two shocks of an earthquake, and the prophecy of a third,
which was to destroy them altogether. The first shock was felt on the
8th of February, and threw down several chimneys in the neighbourhood of
Limehouse and Poplar; the second happened on the 8th of March, and was
chiefly felt in the north of London, and towards Hampstead and Highgate.
It soon became the subject of general remark, that there was exactly
an interval of a month between the shocks; and a crack-brained fellow,
named Bell, a soldier in the Life Guards, was so impressed with the idea
that there would be a third in another month, that he lost his senses
altogether, and ran about the streets predicting the destruction of
London on the 5th of April. Most people thought that the first would
have been a more appropriate day; but there were not wanting thousands
who confidently believed the prediction, and took measures to transport
themselves and families from the scene of the impending calamity. As the
awful day approached, the excitement became intense, and great numbers
of credulous people resorted to all the villages within a circuit
of twenty miles, awaiting the doom of London. Islington, Highgate,
Hampstead, Harrow, and Blackheath, were crowded with panic-stricken
fugitives, who paid exorbitant prices for accommodation to the
housekeepers of these secure retreats. Such as could not afford to pay
for lodgings at any of those places, remained in London until two or
three days before the time, and then encamped in the surrounding fields,
awaiting the tremendous shock which was to lay their high city all level
with the dust. As happened during a similar panic in the time of Henry
VIII, the fear became contagious, and hundreds who had laughed at the
prediction a week before, packed up their goods, when they saw others
doing so, and hastened away. The river was thought to be a place of
great security, and all the merchant vessels in the port were filled
with people, who passed the night between the 4th and 5th on board,
expecting every instant to see St. Paul's totter, and the towers of
Westminster Abbey rock in the wind and fall amid a cloud of dust. The
greater part of the fugitives returned on the following day, convinced
that the prophet was a false one; but many judged it more prudent to
allow a week to elapse before they trusted their dear limbs in London.
Bell lost all credit in a short time, and was looked upon even by the
most credulous as a mere madman. He tried some other prophecies, but
nobody was deceived by them; and, in a few months afterwards, he was
confined in a lunatic asylum.
A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds
and its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following
circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were
inscribed, in legible characters, the words "Christ is coming." Great
numbers visited the spot, and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced
that the day of judgment was near at hand. Like sailors in a storm,
expecting every instant to go to the bottom, the believers suddenly
became religious, prayed violently, and flattered themselves that they
repented them of their evil courses. But a plain tale soon put them
down, and quenched their religion entirely. Some gentlemen, hearing of
the matter, went one fine morning, and caught the poor hen in the act
of laying one of her miraculous eggs. They soon ascertained beyond doubt
that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly
forced up again into the bird's body. At this explanation, those who had
prayed, now laughed, and the world wagged as merrily as of yore.
At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting a
description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work "De
Peste Mediolani", the people, in their distress, listened with avidity
to the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is singular
enough that the plague was foretold a year before it broke out. A large
comet appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were divided with
regard to it. Some insisted that it was a forerunner of a bloody war;
others maintained that it predicted a great famine; but the greater
number, founding their judgment upon its pale colour, thought it
portended a pestilence. The fulfilment of their prediction brought them
into great repute while the plague was raging.