"Ursula, my dearly loved sister, daughter, and friend--I arrived here
last night, after a difficult passage. Here I am, then, on the precious
soil that gave me birth. .... Ah! my dear ones, if I could clasp you all
in my arms, my heart would be less bruised, less in anguish than it is!
Alas! I have lost Somers-town, for me a land of benediction; and in my
own country, I look for France in vain. In twenty-four hours, what have I
not seen already! This holy day of rest made a working day; not a shop
that is not open; not a street-vender that is not crying his wares. What
a sight! How it pierces any heart that retains the faith! ... All the
difference between the twenty-two last years and those that it may please
the Lord to add to me will only be in the outward utterance of my
feelings. I was silent, and I loved; I shall speak, but I cannot love
more. Oh! what a pure and innocent enjoyment it will be to bless your
children and your grandchildren, and to chat together about the days of
our youth! I so need some distraction, some nourishment to my poor heart.
But do you know the way to procure it the most delicious nourishment? It
is to assure me that you wish to live and breathe only for God and for
his love; for this is the true life of man--to have a sinner's awe and a
child's love for the most tender and compassionate of fathers. If it were
granted me to gain him some hearts before dying, this would be a balm
that would heal all my wounds. Ah, my child, if you knew what angelic
souls I have left on the soil of my second country! Excellent Christians,
you are not heard of on earth; but what a festival is in preparation for
you in heaven! The love of God for ever! Let us talk of this love; let us
act in everything for the sake of it; let us act only through it. To live
without loving is to languish; to live without loving is to die. Ah! let
us live to love, and let us desire death in order to love still more. Let
us live to get love for what is alone supremely lovable, our dear Master,
our best of fathers.
{267}
By his side, and in his bosom, all pains lose their bitterness; and how
much of it do they not lose! He forgets nothing that can embellish our
crown; and to suffer for so good a Master has its own special charm;
suffering love is the best love. Adieu, my beloved child; your father
will always love you, as the old curate of St. Germain loved you, and--to
end with that sweet title--as _the Missioner of Somers-town_ loved
you."
In November he was installed with the orphans, whom he had left in England
until he was ready for them, and the ladies who instructed them, in what
was to be his home henceforth, with the exception of his second brief
exile, until death, a house in the _Impasse des Feuillantines_ in the
Faubourg St. Jacques. Thirty of his pupils were paid for by the king, and
others received at his own risk. On the 1st of the following March Napoleon
landed from Elba, and at Lyons, on his way to Paris, ordered all returned
exiles who had come back without his leave to quit France within a
fortnight, under pain of death. On the 4th, all unconscious of what had
happened, the merry old lady who was at the head of the establishment, and
styled herself _Religieuse indigne du Monastère des Feuillantines_,
was writing a letter, sparkling with fun, to invite the abbé's nephew to
come in June and keep with them the _triplex-majus_ feast of St. Guy.
Before the end of the month she and the abbé and most of the orphans were
again in banishment in London, and a crowd of fugitives were looking to him
again for help. An appeal to his "generous friends, the citizens of Great
Britain," brought in £500.
At Kensington, whither he retired to avoid any appearance of interference
at Somers-town, he gave shelter to a young man, who was afterward too well
known as the Abbé de la Mennais. A great friendship sprang up between them;
and when the battle of Waterloo allowed of his return, Féli, as he was
familiarly called, clung to the Abbé de Carron, whom uncertainties about
his orphans detained in London, and accompanied him back to the
Feuillantines in December. "What a man!" he wrote to a common friend of the
abbé, whom he always called his good father, "or rather what a saint! I
hope, by the help of his advice, to settle at last to something. It is high
time. Thirty-three years lost, and worse than lost!" Happy would it have
been for him if be had been guided by his venerable friend's counsels. The
instincts of faith in the abbé made him suspect even the first volume of
the Essai sur l'Indifférence. When the second came out, he wrote a most
affectionate and touching letter, appealing from his head to his heart, and
imploring him not to go on writing. But it was too late.
We regret that we cannot linger longer over the last days of the abbé. The
difficulties about his establishment at Rennes, which were not settled till
just before his death, prevented the return to his native place for which
he had hoped, and he remained at Paris. We intended to confine ourselves
mainly to his labors in England; and we have not space to dwell, as we
could wish, on that wonderful institution of the Feuillantines, where the
pupils never met a mistress without an embrace; where the great treat,
after some months of study, was a week of what our foolish would-be
governesses often call "menial drudgery," and the greatest treat of all was
to wait at table on parties of poor people and play with their children;
where Mr. (afterward Cardinal) Weld, whose daughter was married to Lord
Clifford in the chapel of the institution, and all the most pious priests
in Paris, came for edification and recreation; and whence relief flowed to
all the destitute in the city. The good old abbé died worn out with toil
and austerities, the chief of which, such as the wearing of spiked belts
and haircloths, were not known till after his death, on the 15th of March,
1821.
{268}
His memory was fresh at Somers-town; and at the requiem sung for him there
the chapel was crowded with rich and poor, all in mourning attire; and the
voice of the bishop preaching was interrupted by sobs and cries of grief.
The simple motto on his grave is _Pertransiit benifaciendo;_ and to
few could the words be more truly applied. "Needy, yet enriching many,"
might be added as equally appropriate. The Catholics of England, as well as
of France, have good reason to thank God for the life and labors of Abbé
Carron.
------
Translated From the French.
The Birds' Friend.
For some years past, in the garden of the Tuileries, is seen, daily, a man
of middle height, with a respectable and roundness of figure, thick
mustaches, and beard slightly gray and bushy, who, as soon as he appears in
one of the walks bordering the terrace of the water, is surrounded by a
numerous brood of pigeons. He throws them a morsel of bread or cake which
he brings with him, and the birds are so familiar with him that, far from
flying away, they surround him, and dispute for his favors and liberality.
Some of them, even, his favorites, flying around his head, perch on his
shoulders, his arm or hand, and dip their bills in his mouth for their
accustomed nourishment. He is the subject of admiration for young mothers,
babies great and small, truant apprentices, and child nurses, generally. As
soon as the bird man arrives, they precipitate themselves in his train. He
advances majestically, and with quite an imposing air, followed by his
impromptu court, which holds back slightly, from respect, no doubt, and
fear of frightening the birds. Idle people who come every day to lounge in
the garden of the Tuileries take their daily walk or read the papers, join
the crowd of courtiers, and even Guignol himself, in presence of this
redoubtable concourse, sees his representations deserted, and the Petite
Provençe forsaken by the rheumatisms who come to seek a ray of sun on his
benches. The friend of the birds walks with a sense of his own importance,
and enjoys greatly the astonishment and homage of the crowd. With his cane
under his arm, his hat on his head, and as immovable as the dervish on his
minaret, or the little joist of the fable, he gravely accomplishes his
daily office. The young mothers are astonished, the children open their
large eyes, and I saw one of the smallest ones, Master Guguste, so terribly
frightened, because the birds were not afraid of him, that he hid himself
behind his big brother Aymer, and took in the whole scene by stealth, in
bo-peep style. Master Guguste will certainly ask his father, whom he has
led by the hand toward the place where the friend of the birds dines his
pets, how is it the pigeons fly around this man's head, and when he, Master
Guguste, runs toward them, they always fly away? The good little fellow
forgets to add that he throws stones at them--his age has no mercy--and
that the pigeons have the bad taste to prefer cake.
{269}
The birds' friend has become one of the sights of the Tuileries, and one of
the pleasures of the Parisians. They come from the marshes to see him; and
the provincial who arranges his programme for his visit to Paris never
forgets to write in his note-book: "To go and see the wild beasts breakfast
in the Garden of Plants; to go and see the hippopotamus bathe; to go and
see the pigeons eat in the garden of the Tuileries." Innocent people ask by
what talisman this man of the Tuileries has succeeded in taming the
pigeons.
I think his method is a simple one, and that he has nothing in common with
the charmers of India, nor even with Madame Vandermersch, who has
astonished the saloons of Paris by the singular empire she exercises over
the feathered tribe.
Then, the pigeons of the Tuileries, like all animals not tormented and
accustomed to a crowd, are not easily frightened. If you have ever been to
Venice, you have certainly seen the pigeons of the square of St. Mark.
These pigeons, whose history is very curious, date their origin from the
ancient republic of Venice. At that time, it was the custom on Palm Sunday
to let fly from the top of the principal door of the church of St. Mark a
large number of birds, with little rolls of paper so attached to their
claws as to force them to fall into the hands of the crowd who filled the
court, and disputed among themselves for this living prey. Some of these
birds, having succeeded in ridding themselves of their fetters, and
training the thread like the pigeon of La Fontaine, sought an asylum on the
roof of the church of St. Mark, and on that of the ducal palace, not far
from the celebrated leads that Silvio Pellico has described in "My
Prisons," and Lord Byron has cursed in his immortal verses. They multiplied
rapidly, and became the favorites of the population to such a degree that,
to respect popular opinion, the senate of Venice issued a decree, stating
that the pigeons of the square of St. Mark had become the guests of the
republic, and as such should be respected and nourished at the cost of the
state. While the republic of Venice existed, a man employed by the corn
administration of the city came every morning to distribute the rations of
the pigeons on the place of St. Mark and the Piazza. Since the
establishment of Austrian rule, the Venetians support their favorite birds
by voluntary contributions. Accustomed to live in peace with man, the
pigeons of the place of St. Mark have become exceedingly familiar. They
never fly away at the approach of the promenaders, and I have seen them
perched on the edge of the buckets of the water-carriers, to quench their
thirst, and not even take flight when these women took their buckets by the
handle. In truth, the whole secret of taming animals consists in not
frightening them by movements too sudden or by noise, never injuring them,
and always treating them well.
If you have never seen the pigeons of the place of St. Mark at Venice, you
have certainly seen the fishes of the large pond at Fontainebleau come in
bands to dispute the bread thrown to them; the swans of the basins of the
Tuileries swim toward the children who throw them crumbs of their cakes;
the small elephants of the Garden of Plants put forth their trunks gently
to seize a piece of rye bread; and more than one young girl has amused
herself during the winter in spreading the crumbs from her table on her
balcony, to see flocks of sparrows tumble down and help themselves at the
well-set table, doing honor to the banquet, without considering in the
least the pretty blonde head and the laughing mouth assisting their repast.
You see, it is always the same process. What frightens animals is noise,
sudden movements, and especially bad treatment.
When man makes friends of them, it is rarely they do not respond to his
advances. You know the history of Androcles and his lion, of Pellisson and
his spider, and a hundred others of the same kind. I do not speak of
domestic animals, the dog especially, our faithful companion.
{270}
The Bible itself, the book of books, in relating the return of the young
Tobias conducted by the angel to his father, has in honor of this faithful
animal these charming lines: "Then the dog, who had followed them all the
way, ran before them, and, like a courier who might have preceded them, he
testified his joy by the wagging of his tail." The grand poet of paganism,
Homer, in his turn, has described in the most touching and heartfelt
verses, Ulysses, on his return to Ithaca, unknown to Penelope, Telemachus,
and his retainers, but recognized by the dog, who died of joy at his feet.
But passing by the dog who is our friend, savage animals show themselves no
less sensible to man's goodness, and as we read the legends of monks of the
Merovingian time, who lived hid in the depths of forests, it seems that
virtue can give man the same empire over animals which he had in his first
days of innocence. M. de Montalembert, in his Moines d'Occident, has
recounted many legends of this nature. A huge boar, pursued by hunters,
fled for asylum to the cell of St. Basil, which he had constructed in the
thickest part of the mountain forest of Rheims. Again, St. Laumer,
wandering in the forest of Perche, and chanting psalms, met a hind flying
before several wolves. To him, she was the symbol and image of the
Christian soul pursued by demons; he wept for pity, and cried to the
wolves: "Enraged executioners, return to your dens, and leave this poor
little beast; the Lord arrest this prey from your bloodthirsty mouths." The
wolves stopped at his voice, and retraced their steps. "Behold," said the
saint to his companion, "how the devil, of all wolves the most ferocious,
seeks ever some one to strangle and devour in the church of Christ."
Meanwhile the hind followed him, and he passed nearly two hours in
caressing her before returning to his home.
Recitals of this nature are numerous. It was the lion of the Abbé Gérasime,
whose monastery was on the borders of the Jordan, who, having loved the
monk during his life, came to die on his tomb. The wolf of another solitary
waited at his door for the remains of his humble repast, and never retired
without licking his hand. Irish legends tell us of stags of the forests
coming to present their heads to the yoke to draw the plough. Everywhere we
find man's power over animals established by sanctity. "Can we be
astonished," said Bède on this subject, "if he who faithfully and loyally
obeys his Creator sees in his turn inferior creatures subject to his
command?"
Among the legendary recitals we find none more touching than those written
of St. François d'Assise, whose heart overflowed with tenderness to
animals. We read in a legend that this great saint, who had a beautiful and
harmonious voice, hearing one evening the song of a nightingale, was
tempted to respond, so that he passed the night in chanting, alternately
with the bird, the praises of God. The legend adds that François was
exhausted the first, and praised the bird that had so completely vanquished
him.
Who has not read in the Franciscan Poets the miracle of the saint who
converted the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, and how he tamed the wild
turtle-doves, a present from a pious young man, while saying to them: "O my
simple and innocent doves! how will you ever be tamed? But I must save you
from death, and make you nests, that you may obey the command of our
Creator." And the turtle-doves, by degrees less wild, commenced to deposit
their eggs, like hens, covering them before the brothers, and nourished by
their hands. In conclusion, let us recall the exordium of a delightful
sermon related in the Franciscan Poets, and addressed by the saint to a
multitude of birds, attentive to his voice, a sermon related to Brother
Jacques de Massa by Brother Massio, one of St. Francis's favorite
disciples: "My birds, you are extremely obliged to God, our Creator, and
always and in every place you ought to praise him, because he has given you
liberty to fly everywhere, has clothed you with double and triple
vestments, and has preserved your species in the ark of Noah.
{271}
Besides, you neither sow nor reap, and God cares for you; gives you streams
and fountains to quench your thirst, mountains and valleys for your refuge,
and large trees in which to make your nests." But we have rambled from the
commencement of our story. We began in the garden of the Tuileries, and end
in another garden, a mystical one, where we gather flowers from St.
Francis.
------
From Chambers's Journal
Time-Measurers.
There is, perhaps, no subject more interesting to human nature than that of
time. Like eternity, it concerns us all; and, unlike it, exacts as well as
demands our attention. True, as Sir Walter Scott writes, "it is but a
shadowy name, a succession of breathings measured forth by night with the
clank of a bell, by day with a shadow crossing along a dial stone;" but we
cannot shut our eyes for very long to the fact of its passage. If in our
youth we strive to kill it, so all the more in our age do we strive to
lengthen its too brief hours out. Even the means by which to note its
course have naturally engaged the minds of men in all ages; they have been
very diverse and ingenious, and a due record of them cannot fail to contain
many curious particulars. Such a work has been recently published in Mr.
Wood's Curiosities of Clocks and Watches. Even the diligence of our author,
however, does not seem to have discovered at what period the present method
of beginning the day at midnight came into use; but it is supposed to have
been an ecclesiastical invention. Among the early Romans, the day was
divided into twelve hours, from sunrise to sunset, the length of which,
therefore, varied with the seasons. The Egyptians, Mexicans, and Persians
reckoned the day to begin from sunrise, and divided it into four intervals,
determined by the rising and setting of the sun, and its two passages over
the meridian. Our own uniform hours of sixty minutes each could scarcely
have come into use until something like the wheel-clock was invented: the
ancient sun-dial represented hours of a length varying with the seasons,
and the clepsydra (or water-clock) was adjusted to furnish hours of fifty
to seventy minutes each, to suit the changing lengths of day and night.
Clocks, even so late as the reign of James I., were often called horologes;
and, up to the fourteenth century, the word clock was applied only to the
bell which rang out the hours, or certain periods determined by the
sun-dial or sand-glass. To this day, the bell of Wells cathedral is still
called the horologe.
The clepsydra is said to have been invented by the censor Scipio Nasica,
595 B.C. The principle of these early time-measurers was a very simple one.
"In those of the common kind, the water issued drop by drop through a small
hole in the vessel that contained it, and fell into a receiver, in which
some light floating body marked the height of the water as it rose, and by
these means the time that had elapsed. In a bas-relief of the date of the
lower empire, figuring the Hippodrome in Constantinople, a clepsydra, in
the shape of an oviform vase, appears. It is very simply mounted, being
traversed by an axis, and turned with a crooked handle.
{272}
By this contrivance, the instantaneous inversion of the vase was secured,
and the contents, escaping in a certain definite time, showed the number of
minutes which were taken up by each _missus_, or course. Vitruvius
tells us of the construction of a clepsydra which, besides the hours, told
the moon's age, the zodiacal sign for the month, and several other things;
in fact, it was a regular astronomical clock. His details now read somewhat
obscure and complicated; but the principle was that a float, as it moved
upward by means of a vertical column fixed in it, drove different sets of
cog-wheels, which impelled in their turn other sets, by means of which
figures were made to move, obelisks to twirl round, pebbles to be
discharged, trumpets to sound, and many other tricks to be put into action.
The admission-pipe for the water was made either of gold or a perforated
gem, in order that it might not wear away, or be liable to get foul." The
floats sometimes communicated with wheels which worked hands on dials, or
supported human figures which pointed with hands to certain numbers as the
water rose; and in some ingenious water-clocks the fluid flowed as tears
from eyes of automata; but all these _clepsydrae_ had two great
defects: the one being that the flow varied with the density of the
atmosphere; the other, that the water flowed quicker at last than at first.
They were, however, put to one excellent use, which has, unhappily, fallen
into decay: they were set up in the law-courts to time counsel; "to prevent
babbling, that such as spoke ought to be brief in their speeches." For this
custom, the world was indebted to the Romans (especially Pompey), and from
it Martial is supplied with a pleasant sarcasm: perceiving a dull declaimer
moistening his lips with a glass of water, he suggests that it would be a
relief to the audience as well as to himself if he would take his liquor
from the clepsydra.
With some mechanical additions, the ancient clepsydras were made to do
wonderful things besides stopping lawyers' tongues. Haroun-al-Raschid sent
(in 807), by two monks of Jerusalem, to the Emperor Charlemagne a brass
water-clock, the dial of which was composed of twelve small doors
representing the divisions of the hours; each door opened at the hour it
was intended to represent, and out of it came the same number of little
balls, which fell one by one, at equal distances of time, on a brass drum.
It might be told by the eye what hour it was by the number of doors that
were open, and by the ear by the number of balls that fell. When it was
twelve o'clock, twelve horsemen in miniature issued forth at the same time,
and, marching round the dial, shut all the doors.
Hour-glasses, called clepsammia, in which sand took the place of water,
were modifications of the clepsydrae. Candle-clocks were used as
time-measurers by some, and especially by our own Alfred the Great. "To
rightly divide his time, be adopted the following simple expedient: he
procured as much wax as weighed seventy-two pennyweights, which he
commanded to be made into six candles, each twelve inches in length, with
the divisions of inches distinctly marked upon it. These being lighted one
after another regularly, burned four hours each, at the rate of an inch for
every twenty minutes. Thus the six candles lasted twenty-four hours. The
tending of these candle-clocks he confided to one of his domestic
chaplains, who constantly from time to time gave him notice of their
wasting. But when the winds blew, the air, rushing in through the doors,
windows, and crevices of his rude habitation, caused his candles to gutter,
and, by fanning the flame, to burn faster. The ingenious king, in order to
remedy this serious inconvenience, caused some fine white horn to be
scraped so thin as to be transparent, which he let into close frames of
wood; and in these primitive lanthorns his wax-clocks burned steadily in
all weathers."
{273}
The invention of wheel-clocks is attributed by some to Archimedes so early
as 200 B.C.; by others to Wallingford so late as the beginning of the
fourteenth century; but in the Book of Landaff, describing the life of St.
Teilavus, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the end of the fifth
century, it is stated that he returned to Britain with three precious
gifts, and among them "a bell greater in fame than in size, and in value
than in beauty. It convicts the perjured, and cures the infirm; and what
seems still more wonderful is, that _it did sound every hour without
being touched_, until it was prevented by the sin of men, who rashly
handled it with polluted hands, and it ceased from so delightful an
office." They looked their gift-clock in the mouth, and probably disturbed
the works.
St. Paul's had a clock of some sort at a very early period; in the year
1286, allowances to "Bartholomo Orologiario" (the clock-keeper) being
entered, in its accounts, of so much bread and beer. Iron and steel were
used for the wheels and frames until the end of the sixteenth century, and
blacksmiths were the chief clock-makers. Chaucer, who died in 1400, remarks
of a punctual cock of his acquaintance:
"Full sikerer was his crowing and his loge
Then his a clock or any abbey orologe;"
or:
"As certain was is crowing in his roost
As any clock or abbey orologe;"
which might probably have been truthfully said of many a less punctual
bird; for, to judge by the old parish account-books, these blacksmiths'
clocks were not good goers, and were for ever being rectified. That of St.
Alban's abbey, however, was an exception. It was constructed at a great
cost by Richard de Wallingford, son of a blacksmith in the town in
question, but afterward made abbot for his learning (1330), and his clock
was "going" in Henry VIII.'s reign. It noted the course of the sun and
moon, the rising and setting of the planets and fixed stars, and the ebb
and flow of the tide. When the good abbot felt his end drawing nigh, his
thoughts being fixed on time as well as eternity, he left a book of
directions for keeping this piece of mechanism in order.
For ingenuity and complication, however, all ancient clocks must hide their
dials in the presence of that of Strasburg cathedral. "Before this clock
stands a globe on the ground, showing the motions of the heavens, stars,
and planets. The heavens are carried about by the first mover in
twenty-four hours. Saturn, by it proper motion, is carried about in thirty
years; Jupiter, in twelve; Mars, in two; the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, in
one year; and the moon in one month. In the clock itself are two tables on
the right and left hand, showing the eclipses of the sun and moon for the
year 1573 to 1624. The third table in the middle is divided into two parts.
In the first part, the statues of Apollo and Diana show the course of the
year and the day thereof, being carried about one year. The second part
shows the year of our Lord, and the equinoctial days, the hours of each
day, and the minutes of each hour, Easter-day, and all the other feasts,
and the dominical letter; and the third part hath the geographical
description of all Germany, and particularly of Strasburg, and the names of
the inventor and the workmen. In the middle frame of the clock is an
astrolabe, showing the sign in which each planet is every day; and there
are statues of the seven planets upon a circular plate of iron; so that
every day the planet that rules the day comes forth, the rest being hid
within the frames, till they come out, of course, at their day, as the sun
upon Sunday, and so for all the week. There is a terrestrial globe, which
shows the quarter, the half hour, and the minutes. There is a figure of a
human skull, and statues of two boys, whereof one turns the hour-glass when
the clock has struck, and the other puts forth the rod in his hand at each
stroke of the clock. Moreover, there are statues of spring, summer, autumn,
and winter, and many observation of the moon.
{274}
In the upper part of the clock are four old men's statues, which strike the
quarters of the hour. The statue of death comes out at each quarter to
strike, but is driven back by the statue of Christ, with a spear in his
hand, for three quarters; but in the fourth quarter death strikes the hour
with the bone in his hand, and then the chimes sound. On the top of the
clock is the image of a cock, which twice in a day crows aloud and claps
his wings. Besides, this clock is decked with many rare pictures, and,
being on the inside of the church, carries another frame to the outside of
the walls, whereon the hours of the sun, the courses of the moon, the
length of the day, and such other things are set out with much art." But
perhaps the most striking part of the history of this famous Strasburg
clock was that it was made, or, at all events, perfected, by a blind man.
The artisan who contrived it lost his sight, and was superseded; but since
nobody else would carry out his ideas, and he refused to communicate them,
he was reinstated in his work, and actually carried out the affair, in all
its intricate delicacy, to the end. There are several other examples of
blind clockmakers, and even watchmakers. "The Illustrated London News of
August 23, 1851, tells us that there was then living at Holbeach,
Lincolnshire, a watchmaker named Rippin, who was completely blind. He was a
first-rate hand at his business, and it was truly surprising to observe
with what ease he could take to pieces and place together again watches of
the most delicate mechanism. Some years previously, Rippin was robbed, and
the property taken from him consisted of watch-wheels, hair springs, and
other tiny things belonging to the trade. The thief was traced, and
convicted at Spalding sessions, the blind man having sworn to his property
by feeling."
Those who are accustomed only to eight-day clocks will be astonished to
learn that some time-pieces have been made to go for a hundred years! The
Marquis of Bute had one at Luton Park; and "in Sir John Moore's account of
his 'large sphere-going clock-work' (Mathem. Compend.) we read that it made
a revolution of once in seventeen thousand one hundred years, by means of
six wheels and five pinions, for the sun's apogeum." Instead of "it made,"
one should surely here read "it was made to make," since the oldest
inhabitant could scarcely certify to the fact having been performed. In
1859, after years of labor, James White, of Wickham Market, completed a
self-winding clock, which determined the time with unfailing accuracy,
continuing a constant motion by itself, never requiring to be wound up, and
being capable of perpetuating its movements so long as its component parts
should exist.
Italy boasts of some curious native clockwork. Early in the last century,
at the Palazzo di Colonna at Rome, was a portable clock, which was wound up
only once a year, and showed the hour of the day, the month, and the year;
and the popes possessed for two centuries a horological marvel, which,
passing through the hands of King William I. of the Netherlands, was
exhibited to our Royal Society so late as 1848. This was produced solely by
manual labor, without any other help than the bench of the turner and the
file; yet it shows the date of the month and all the Catholic feasts and
holidays throughout the year. Seven heathen gods make their appearance,
each on his proper week-day, exactly in front, and is relieved, after
twenty-four hours' duty, by the next. "In the centre of the second division
(the clock being a tower of three stories) is an image of the Virgin,
holding her son Jesus in her arms; two angels are seen placing crowns and
garlands on her head; and during the performance of the bells, several
angels appear making their obeisance before the image of Mary and the
Saviour. Within the centre of the third division is a metal bell hanging on
a gilt plate of copper, on which is represented the judgment-day.
{275}
Round this metal plate move four silver figures, set in motion by
mechanism, representing the four states of social life. These images point
out the quarters of the hour by striking the bell; the first quarter is
represented by a youth, the second by a grave citizen, the third by a Roman
soldier, and the fourth by a priest. In the fourth division is likewise a
metal bell, on the sides of which are chambers; on the left side is the
representation of death, proclaiming the hours of day and night by striking
the bell; above it is seen a Latin inscription, from Romans, chapter vii.
verse 23. At the right side is the image of the Saviour, stepping forward,
with the globe in his hand, and above it the cross. This figure proceeds
every two minutes in a slow manner, and then, for a moment, hides itself
from view; above it is a Latin verse from the prophet Hosea, chapter xiii.
These two figures are of massive silver. Behind the bell is inscribed the
name of the artist, and the date 1589." Many ancient clocks upon the
continent exhibit processions of saints and various other religious
automata; but the most singular of all, perhaps, is one in the cathedral of
St. John at Lyon. On the top of it stands a cock, that every three hours
claps his wings and crows thrice. In a gallery underneath, a door opens on
one side, and out comes the Virgin Mary; and from a door on the other side
the angel Gabriel, who meets and salutes her. At the same time a door opens
in the alcove part, out of which the form of a dove, representing the Holy
Ghost, descends upon the Virgin's head. After this, these figures retire,
and from a door in the middle comes forth the figure of a reverend father,
lifting up his hand and giving his benediction to the spectators. The days
of the week are represented by seven figures, each of which takes its place
in a niche on the morning of the day that it represents, and continues
there until midnight. The greatest curiosity is an oval plate marked with
the minutes of an hour, which are exactly pointed out by a hand reaching
the circumference, that insensibly dilates and contracts itself during the
revolution. This curious machine, although not so perfect now in all its
movements as when it was originally constructed, has suffered but little
injury during a long course of years, owing to the care and skill of those
who were appointed to look after it. It appears from an inscription on the
clock itself that it was repaired and improved by one Morrison in 1661; but
it was contrived long before that time by Nicholas Lipp, a native of Basle,
who finished it in 1598, when he was about thirty years of age. The oval
minute motion was invented by M. Servier, and is of later date. There is a
tradition that the ingenious artist, Lipp, had his eyes put out by order of
the magistrates of Lyon, that he might not be able to make another clock
like this; but so far from this being true, the justices of Lyon engaged
him to take care of his own machine, at a handsome salary.
Ingenious, however, as are the quasi-religious automata above mentioned,
how inferior are they in human interest when compared with the time-piece
possessed by Mrs. Forester at Great Brickhill, Bucks, "the identical clock
which was at Whitehall at the time of the execution of Charles I., and by
which the fatal moment was regulated." At that period (the seventeenth
century), there was a great taste for striking-clocks. "Several of them,
made by Thomas Tompion, who invented many useful things in clock-work, not
only struck the quarters on eight bells, but also the hour after each
quarter. At twelve o'clock, forty-four blows were struck, and one hundred
and thirteen between twelve and one o'clock. Failures in the striking
mechanism of these clocks were attended with much annoyance to the owners
of them, for they would go on striking without cessation until the weight
or spring had gone down, and they were frequently contrived to go for a
month.
{276}
In 1696, a very remarkable clock was made for "Le Grand Monarque," whom
science as well as literature, it seems, delighted to flatter. Louis was
therein represented upon his throne, surrounded by the electors of the
German states and the princes of Italy, who advanced toward him doing
homage, and retired chiming the quarters of the hours with their canes. The
kings of Europe did the same, except that they struck the hours instead of
the quarters. The maker, Burdeau, advertised his intention of exhibiting
this work of art in public, and knowing the stubborn resistance offered to
his sovereign by William III., be determined to make the English monarch's
effigy particularly pliant, so that when its turn came he should show an
especial humility. "William, thus compelled, bowed very low indeed; but, at
the same moment, some part of the machinery snapped asunder, and threw 'Le
Grand Monarque' prostrate from his chair at the feet of the British king.
The news of the accident spread in every direction as an omen; the king was
informed of it, and poor Burdeau was confined in the Bastille."
Clock-omens, it seems, have not been confined to the work of this
unfortunate Frenchman, "A correspondent of Notes and Queries" for March 28,
1861, relates the following account of a curious omen or coincidence: 'On
Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning, at three o'clock, the
inhabitants of the metropolis were roused by repeated strokes of the new
great bell at Westminster, and most persons supposed it was for a death in
the royal family. There might have been about twenty slow strokes when it
ceased. It proved, however, to be due to some derangement of the clock, for
at four and five o'clock, ten or twelve strokes were struck instead of the
proper number. On mentioning this in the morning to a friend who is deep in
London antiquities, he observed that there is an opinion in the city that
anything the matter with St. Paul's great bell is an omen of ill to the
royal family; and he added: "I hope the opinion will not extend to the
Westminster bell." This was at eleven on Friday morning. I see by the Times
this morning, that it was not till 1 A.M. the lamented Duchess of Kent was
considered in the least danger, and, as you are aware, she expired in less
than twenty-four hours. ... I am told the same notion obtains at Windsor.'"
A century after Burdeau's masterpiece, a much more useful work, and one
perhaps equally characteristic of the nationality of its maker, was
executed for George III. by Alexander Cumming, of Edinburgh, which
registered the height of the barometer. "This was effected by a circular
card, of about two feet in diameter, being made to turn once in a year, the
card was divided by radii lines into three hundred and sixty-five
divisions, the months and days being marked round the edge, while the usual
range of the barometer was indicated in inches and tenths by circular lines
described from the centre. A pencil, with a fine point pressed on the card
by a spring, and held by an upright rod floating on the mercury, accurately
marked the state of the barometer; the card, being carried forward by the
clock, brought each day to the pencil. It was not even necessary to change
the card at the year's end, as a pencil with a different-colored lead would
make a distinction between two years. This barometer-clock cost nearly two
thousand pounds, and the maker was allowed a salary of two hundred pounds
per annum to keep it in repair."
{277}
Taking leave of these ingenious complications, we may say indeed that in
nothing has "man sought out many inventions," or exhibited his diligence
and patience, more than in the science of clockmaking. Earth, air, fire,
and water have been pressed into his service for his purpose; the sand or
earth clock being worked like the water-clock; the air-clock consisting in
the pumping of a bellows, like those of an organ, the gradual escape of the
air regulating the descent of a weight, which carried round the wheels; and
the fire-clock being formed upon the principle of the smoke-jack, the
"wheels being moved by means of a lamp, which also gave light to the dial;
this clock was made to announce the several hours by placing at each a
corresponding number of crackers, which were exploded at proper times."
This very alarming time-piece was outdone by a cannon-clock placed in 1832
in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. "A burning-glass was fixed over the
vent of a cannon, so that the sun's rays at the moment of its passing the
meridian were contracted by the glass on the priming, and the piece was
fired; the burning-glass being regulated for this purpose every month." At
Greenwich Observatory there is a most ingenious wind-clock, which, however,
is not a time-measurer, but registers for itself, with pencil and paper,
the wayward action of the wind. "Each minute and each hour has its written
record, without human help or inspection. Once a day only, an assistant
comes to put a new blank sheet in the place of that which has been covered
by the moving pencils, and the latter is taken away to be bound up in a
volume. This book might with truth be lettered, The History of the Wind;
written by Itself: an AEolian Autobiography."
The well-known and simple piece of mechanism called a cuckoo-clock has been
the cause of some spiritual mischief. An assortment of them was taken by
certain missionaries to the Friendly Islands, the inhabitants of which
resolutely refused to attribute them to science; they believed that each
contained a spirit, which would detect a thief if anything were stolen from
their English visitors. When a native was sick, a cuckoo-clock was always
sent for, as being "great medicine." Unfortunately, however, one of the
clocks got out of order, and since the missionaries did not understand how
to set it right, they fell into contempt, and lost their usefulness.
The two most curious examples of clock-work--apart from intricacy--to which
Mr. Wood has introduced us are the clock-lock and the clock-bed. The
former, made by a locksmith of Frankfort in 1859, consisted of a strong box
without any keyhole at all, and which even its owner could not open. Inside
was a clock-work, the hand of which, when the box was open, the owner
placed at the hour and minute when he again wanted to have access to the
interior of the box. The works began to move as soon as the lid was shut,
and time alone was the key. The clock-bed was the invention of a Bohemian
in 1858, and was so constructed that a pressure upon it caused a soft and
gentle air of Auber's to be played, which continued long enough to lull to
sleep the most wakeful. At the head was a clock, the hand of which being
placed at the hour that the sleeper wished to rise, when the time arrived
the bed played a march of Spontoni's (spontaneously) with drums and
cymbals, enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.
The great time-piece of Westminster, which receives Greenwich time by
electricity, exhibits no sensible error in less than a month. Mr. Airy's
last report upon its rate was that the first blow of the hour may be relied
on within less than one second a week; which is a seven times greater
accuracy than was required in the original conditions under which the clock
was built.
{278}
A proportionate part of Mr. Wood's interesting volume is devoted to the
smaller subject of watches. The invention of the coiled spring as a motive
power instead of the weight used in clocks seems to have taken place in
1477, at Nuremberg, where watches were first made, and called, from their
oval shape, Nuremberg eggs. In 1530. we find Charles V., in his retirement
at the monastery of St. Yuste, amusing himself with "portable clocks;"
reflecting: "How foolish I was to have squandered so much blood and
treasure to make men think alike, when I can't even make a few watches keep
uniform time;" and good naturedly observing, when a monk overthrew them
all: "I have been laboring for some time to make these watches go together,
and now you have effected it in one instant." This emperor possessed one
watch that was made "in the jewel or collet of his ring," so that
diminutiveness of construction must have been rapidly attained. George
III., however, had a repeating watch presented to him (by Arnold of
Devereux Court, in the Strand) whose size did not exceed that of a silver
twopenny-piece. "It contained one hundred and twenty different parts, but
altogether weighed not more than five pennyweights, seven grains and
three-fourths. ... For this delicate and exquisite specimen of his art,
Arnold had to make nearly all the tools used in its manufacture. This tiny
watch contained the first ruby cylinder ever made, The king presented
Arnold with five hundred guineas; and when the Emperor of Russia offered a
thousand guineas for a similar one, the watchmaker refused to make it lest
he should depreciate the value of his gift."
Sir John Dick Lauder possesses a skull-watch that belonged to Mary Queen of
Scots; this is of silver gilt, and ornamented with representations of death
between the palace and the cottage; the garden of Eden, and the
crucifixion; the holy family at Bethlehem, etc. The works are as brains in
the skull, the hollow of which is filled by a silver bell; the dial-plate
being on a flat upon the roof of the mouth. With reference to this ghastly
subject, Mr. Wood relates that, in a French engraving of 1830, death enters
a watchmaker's shop, and shows his hour-glass to the master, saying:
"_Vais-je bien?_" to which the latter answers: "_Vous avancez
horriblement._" Many persons addicted to the science of watchmaking
seem, indeed, to have been on unusually familiar terms with the king of
terrors; and some have left epitaphs behind them of a very characteristic
nature. In the churchyard of Lydford, in Devonshire, is to be read the
following:
"Here lies in a _horizontal_ position,
the outside _case_ of
George Rautleigh, watchmaker,
whose abilities in that line were an honor to his profession.
Integrity was the _mainspring_, and prudence the
_regulator_ of all the _actions_ of his life;
Humane, generous, and liberal, his _hand_ never
_stopped_ till he had relieved distress;
So nicely _regulated_ was his _movements_,
that he never _went wrong_,
except when _set-agoing_
by people who did not know his _key_;
Even then he was easily _set right_ again.
He had the art of disposing of his _time_ so well,
That his _hours_ glided away in one
continual _round_ of pleasure and delight,
Till an unlucky _moment_ put a _period_ to his existence.
He departed this life November 14, 1802,
Aged 57, _wound up_.
In hopes of being taken in hand by his Maker;
And of being thoroughly _cleaned, repaired_, and
_set-agoing_ for the world to come."
Of course, watches could not be made to imitate the feats of the Strasburg
clock; but in the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg there is a watch
which was made by a Russian peasant, named Kulubin, in the reign of
Catharine II., which is sufficiently wonderful. It is about the size of an
egg, and contains a representation of the tomb of Christ, with the Roman
sentinels. On pressing a spring, the stone is rolled from the tomb, the
sentinels fall down, the angels appear, the holy women enter the sepulchre,
and the same chant which is sung in the Greek Church on Easter eve is
accurately performed.
The most costly and elaborate watch ever produced by British workmen, up to
1844, was made in that year by Hart & Son of Cornhill, for the Sultan Abdul
Medschid; the brilliancy of its colors and exquisiteness of its pencilling
seem to have surpassed anything of the kind of foreign manufacture. It
struck the hours and quarters by itself, and repeated them with the minutes
upon pressing a small gold slide; and the sound, produced by wires instead
of a bell, resembled that of a powerful and harmonious cathedral clock. Its
price was one thousand two hundred guineas.
{279}
The most accurately exact watch is probably Mr. Benson's Chronograph, used
for timing the Derby. "It consists of an ordinary quick train lever
movement, on a scale sufficiently large to carry the hands for an
eight-inch dial, and with the addition of a long seconds-hand, which
traverses the dial, instead of being, as usual, just above the figure VI.
The peculiarity of the chronograph consists in this seconds-hand and the
mechanism connected with it. The hand itself is double, or formed of two
distinct hands, one lying over the other. The lower one, at its extreme
end, is furnished with a small cup or reservoir, with a minute orifice at
the bottom. The corresponding extremity of the upper hand is bent over so
as to rest exactly over this puncture, and the reservoir having been filled
with ink of a thickness between ordinary writing fluid and printer's ink,
the chronograph is ready for action. The operator, who holds tightly
grasped in his hand a stout string connected with the mechanism peculiar to
this instrument, keeps a steady lookout for the fall of the starter's flag.
Simultaneously, therefore, with the start of the race, the string he holds
is pulled by him, and at the same moment the upper hand dips down through
the reservoir in the lower, and leaves a little dot or speck of ink upon
the dial. This is repeated as the horses pass the winning-post, so that a
lasting and indisputable record is afforded by the dots on the dial of the
time--exact to the tenth of a second--which is occupied in running the
race. As an example of the results of this instrument's operations, we may
add that it timed the start and arrival of the Derby race in 1866 as
follows: Start, 3 hours 34 min, 0 sec,; arrival, 3 hours 36 min. 49 sec.;
duration of race, 2 min. 49 sec."
To give an idea of the extraordinary division of labor in this delicate
science, it was stated in evidence before a committee of the House of
Commons, that there are one hundred and two distinct branches of the art of
watchmaking, and that the watch finisher, whose duty it is to put together
the scattered parts, is the only one of the hundred and two persons who can
work in any other department than his own. The hair-spring gives a very
curious proof of the value that can be given to a small piece of steel by
manual labor. Four thousand hair-springs scarcely weigh more than a single
ounce, but often cost more than a thousand pounds. "The pendulum-spring of
a watch, which governs the vibrations of the balance, costs, at the retail
price, two-pence, and weighs three-twentieths of a grain; while the retail
price of a pound of the best iron, the raw material out of which fifty
thousand such springs are made, is the same sum of two-pence." Mr.
Bennett--whose advocacy of female labor in the watch-trade has rendered him
obnoxious to some persons--states that he found at Neufchâtel, where the
Swiss watches are chiefly made, twenty thousand women employed upon the
more delicate parts of the watch-movement.
The last part of this very interesting volume is devoted to that perfection
of timekeepers, the chronometer, by which is found the longitude of a ship
at sea. Twenty thousand pounds was offered by the British government for
the invention of this instrument, which was awarded to John Harrison in
1765. His chronometer, in the first instance, was discredited on a voyage
to Jamaica, since it differed with the chart by a degree and a half, but it
was eventually discovered that it was the chart that was wrong. Of how
accurately chronometers are made, there are numberless instances; here is
one with which we must conclude. "After several months spent at sea,"
writes Dr. Arnott, "in a long passage from South America to Asia, my
pocket-chronometer, and others on board, announced one morning that a
certain point of land was then bearing north from the ship, at a distance
of fifty miles.
{280}
In an hour afterward, when a mist had cleared away, the looker-out on the
mast gave the joyous call of 'Land ahead!' verifying the reports of the
chronometers almost to one mile, after a voyage of thousands of miles. It
is allowable at such a moment, with the dangers and uncertainties of
ancient navigation before the mind, to exult in contemplating what man has
now achieved. Had the rate of the wonderful little instrument in an that
time quickened or slackened ever so slightly, its announcement would have
been useless, or even worse; but in the night and in the day, in storm and
in calm, in heat and in cold, its steady beat went on, keeping exact
account of the rolling of the earth and stars; and in the midst of the
trackless waves, which retain no mark, it was always ready to tell its
magic tale, indicating the very spot on the globe over which it had
arrived."
Among the relics of the Franklin expedition brought home from the arctic
regions by M'Clintock was a pocket-chronometer in excellent preservation;
it had stopped at four o'clock. The owner probably had done with time ere
that.
------
Translated from Revue Génétale, Brussels.
Catholic Doctrine and Natural Science.
M. D'Omalius D'Halloy, in a discourse recently delivered at a general
annual meeting of the class of sciences of the Royal Academy of Belgium
(December 16th, 1866), treated the question which has frequently and
seriously occupied learned minds. Director of an order which has for the
past fifty years been signalized by assiduous labors and patient
researches, he has once again attested, with that superior authority which
none can deny, that "the pretence is shameful, that our religious teachings
are in opposition to the progress of natural science." We receive, with
respect and attention, this frank declaration as the testimony of a noble
mind surrounded with the double glory of science and faith. After the
exordium, the speaker thus pursued his demonstration:
If we commence with that which related to the creation, we shall see, on
the one side, those men who, not wishing to forsake the ideas which were
formed in their early years, have profited by their influence in religious
matters to condemn others who do not desire to follow their conclusions in
regard to the phenomena of the natural development of the world; meanwhile,
on the other side, those men who, inflated by their pride, or prompted by
their desire to divest themselves of the restraint that religion imposes
upon their passions, have profited all they could in whatever they found
obscure or contradictory in the explanations of their adversaries to deny
divine inspiration to the sacred books, and consequently to the fundamental
principles of our religious belief.
I am, on the contrary, led to believe that we can see nothing in the
cosmogony of the book of Genesis but the consecration of several grand
principles; namely, the existence of an all-powerful God anterior to
matter, and its creation by him. I acknowledge that our minds conceive with
difficulty these two principles, but it is more difficult to conceive the
existence of the universe and its admirable arrangement without the
pre-existence of [an] omnipotent being; one against whom neither science
nor reason could raise an objection, or refuse to admit the existence of
its two component principles.
{281}
When we say that God inspired our sacred books, we mean to convey that he
has caused certain men to understand the great truths which they contain;
we do not wish to assert that he has endowed these men with a complete
scientific knowledge. Besides, to comprehend all that study has revealed to
modern _savans_, they should speak or understand the rude language of
the age in question; even at this period, though civilization and the art
of printing have greatly increased the instruction of the masses, we find
astronomers speaking of the _rising_ and the _setting_ of the
sun.
We should not take the sacred writings for other than what they really are;
namely, as the medium through which we are to understand the great
principles which form the basis of our religious belief; and not as
treatises upon natural science.
The long periods, the existence of which has been revealed by the study of
the terrestrial globe, have also been placed in opposition to the recent
period which we find named in the Bible as the epoch of the creation. But
it is to be remarked, in the first place, that the term translated
_day_ has been erroneously rendered; the seven successive periods
indicated in the Bible as the limits of events were not confined to
twenty-four hours; and, in the second place, that the calculations derived
from the age and genealogy of the patriarchs should not be regarded as
imperative; first, because we do not possess the positive value of the
expression translated as _year_, and, further, because it appears that
a portion of the terms of the genealogical series has been lost in the
lapse of time.
The question of the deluge has also given rise to numerous contradictions;
but it seems to me that we can say, on the one side, that these
contradictions support themselves upon the susceptible hypotheses of
discussion, and, on the other, upon the interpretations of modified nature
which they will eventually acknowledge. It is thus that, while there exist
in geology schools which deny the great cataclysms, there are others which
admit them; and we cannot deny that the theory which attributes the origin
of our high mountains to swellings of the crust of the earth relatively
recent, destroys the objections raised against the return of the waters
upon the materials forming the summits of our most elevated plateaux.
Notwithstanding the objections which anthropologists make against the
opinion that all mankind are descended from Noah, which agrees with pure
hypothesis, can we not say that the contrary opinion is founded upon but
one interpretation of Genesis, which cannot be very exact? Indeed, it
appears to me that the book, after the account of the creation, which
should be applied to the entire universe, does, while it always teaches the
power of God and the origin of things, assume: an especial character;
namely, it becomes a history of a people whom God had chosen to serve him
in a particular manner. Thus the history of the Bible does not relate to
any other people than the Hebrews, although these people had relations with
the most powerful races on the earth; the races that are willing to admit
that the deluge of which they speak submerged all the countries known to
the Hebrews, but not all the terrestrial globe. They object in this manner
to see that the book of Genesis gives to the deluge the title of universal;
but is not this one of those expressions often employed to designate
something understood? Do we not often say, All the world was united, all
Europe is afraid, all the world listens? Expressions of this kind are very
common in the florid style of the orientals; and, without leaving the
sacred books, do we not read of the Pentecost, that there were in the
assembly who listened to the apostles "Jews of all the nations under
heaven;" and in the enumeration of the countries from which they came,
"Rome was the most distant?"
{282}
If I here recall the hypotheses of the anthropology of all men who did not
actually descend from Noah, I am far from saying that they were not
descended from one couple. I have had, on the contrary, occasion to declare
that, according to my views, science, in its present state, is powerless to
resolve the question whether the human race is descended from one or from
several sources. However, I am convinced that the differences which
actually present themselves in the diverse human races have not manifested
themselves since the deluge of Noah. I have said, long since, that
paleontology has led me to admit that hereditary transformations are much
more important than the differences which exist in the human race. At all
times admitting that man has hardly suffered the transformations analogous
to those described in the paleontological order, I am far from concluding
that he descends from a beast. Existing observations do not disprove the
distinct creation attributed by the Bible to man. The opinion of some
authors, that all living beings derive their origin from a monad, is a
gratuitous hypothesis, which cannot be supported by facts. Quite to the
contrary, we learn, by paleontology, that all the great organic types
existed in the silurian period; and, if the vertebral type had not yet been
observed in the anterior deposits, this negative circumstance is considered
of small importance. For it is only a short time since that the existence
of organic remains in these deposits has been revealed; that these remains
are very rare, and that even they differ but slightly from those of the
silurian soil. Now, if the present state of observation leads us to admit
that the Creator originally and distinctly formed the great types of
organization, nothing authorizes us to deny that he created in a distinct
manner the only being endowed with the faculty of knowing and adoring him.
On the other side, we do not see why the special origin of man is denied,
even if he should have changed his form with time, as I suppose other
living creatures may have done. Genesis tells us truly that God created man
in his own image; but we cannot understand this phrase to signify that he
himself actuated a material form. God has taken the human form under
certain circumstances to communicate with man, but no one maintains that
this is the normal form of an essentially spiritual being. The Bible, in
speaking of the image of the Deity, scarcely alludes to the material and
decomposable part of man, but always to the spiritual part; which, to be
the _image of God_, should be endowed with immortality. But this
spiritual part, which we call the soul, may have been placed in a being who
had a different form to that worn by man at the present time; one more
appropriate to the sphere in which he lived. Because God now permits the
existence of men, who, by their brutishness, assimilate to the beasts, we
see no reason for supposing that the first men had forms unsuited to the
development of the faculties which characterize the civilized world of
to-day.
They have also denied particular immortality to human souls in assimilating
them to vital force, but this is one of those hypotheses unfounded upon any
observation.
I am convinced that the life, that is to say, the vital force, or the union
of forces which gives to matter the attributes characteristic of organized
bodies, can be assimilated, to a certain degree, to the forces which
determine physical phenomena; because the condition of its effects are more
restrained, and only develop by continuation with the body with which it
was originally endowed, and is not a sufficient reason for concluding that
it belongs to an entirely different order of things. We see, in effect,
that the order of forces presents phenomena which becomes successively less
general; it is thus that attraction constantly acts upon all bodies, while
there exist circumstances where affinity acts upon certain bodies; and the
manifestation of electricity is due to conditions again less general.
{283}
On the other side, we cannot conceive the movement of the stars without the
first cause of impulsion, any more than we can conceive the birth of a
living being without the intervention of a pre-existing cause; we cannot
give to these connections any consequence contrary to the dogma of the
immortality of the soul. Nor can science decide whether physical phenomena
are owing to diverse forces, or to a single force that manifests itself in
various ways; neither resolve the question whether life is composed of an
individual force or the union of many. It is certain that _vegetable
life_, a term which we consider applicable to all living things, is
something different from _animal life_, a term applied to all sensible
beings. It is contended no longer that man has attributes not possessed by
beasts. Now we see nothing in physiology which opposes itself to these
aptitudes being determined by a particular force named the soul, and that
this force be endowed with immortality; that is to say, the power of
preserving eternally its individuality after separation from the matter
which it once animated.
Although I am unfamiliar with physiological studies, I will add that these
considerations compel me to say that I have no right to apply the name of
soul to that force which animates beasts; not that I wish to rob certain
animals of the faculties which they enjoy, but whatever may be the
intelligence or social capacity with which these animals are endowed, they
cannot pretend to perform the _rôle_ that man maintains upon earth.
And neither physiology nor the sacred writings lead us to believe that the
force which animates beasts should be endowed with immortality. I can only
avow that the birth, the existence, and the death of an animal are but the
manifestation of a vital force determined by particular circumstances, as
lightning and thunder are but the manifestations of electricity.
Again, according to my views, a religious sense has hardly been given to
the admission or the rejection of a human kingdom, a question frequently
agitated in these modern times. In fact, the division of natural bodies
into three kingdoms, with their inferior subdivisions, has only been made
to facilitate the knowledge of these beings, and to designate by name the
different groups of which we would speak. We cannot deny that by the
mineral, the animal, and the vegetable kingdoms we understand three
divisions, which include all bodies on the terrestrial globe; and that each
one has common attributes which are not found in the two others; it follows
that, when we admit a human kingdom, we have no term to designate the class
of beings possessing the attributes which distinguish man and the beasts
from the two other kingdoms. This consideration causes me to reject the
human kingdom, without always classing man in the animal; the enlargement
of the vertebrae and the mammiferous class appear to me to oppose
themselves in another order of ideas; we must, therefore, believe that man
is endowed with a soul enjoying attributes different from the force which
animates beasts.
In conclusion, I do not hesitate to say that there exists in my mind no
real opposition between our religious belief and the demonstrations
afforded by the present state of the natural sciences.
------
{284}
Miscellany.
_Meteoric Stones_.--M. Daubrée records his observations on a great
shower of meteoric stones which fell on the 30th of May, in the territory
of Saint Mesmin, in the Department of the Aube. Mr. Daubrée gives the
following account of the phenomenon: The weather being fine and dry, and
only a few clouds in the sky, at about 4,45 in the morning a luminous mass
was seen to cross the sky with great rapidity, and shedding a great light
between Mesgrigny and Payns. A few seconds after this appearance, three
loud explosions, like the report of cannon, were heard at intervals of one
or two seconds. Several minor explosions, like those of muskets, followed
the first, and succeeded one another like the discharge of skirmishers.
After the detonations a tongue of fire darted toward the earth, and at the
same time a hissing noise was heard like that of a squib, but much louder.
This again was followed by a dull, heavy sound, which a person compared to
that of a shell striking the earth near him. After a long search he
perceived, at the distance of about two hundred feet from the place where
he was when he heard the noise, a spot where the earth had been newly
disturbed; he examined the place, and saw a black stone at the bottom of a
hole nine inches deep, which it seemed to have formed. This stone weighs
nearly ten pounds. On the following day a gendarme named Framonnot picked
up another meteoric stone of the same nature, weighing nearly seven pounds,
at about two thousand feet distant from where it first fell. A third stone
was found on the first of June by a man named Prosat, five to six thousand
feet from the two spots above referred to. This last meteorite weighed
nearly four pounds and a half.-_Science Review._
_Father Secchi_.--A new spectroscope has been constructed by Father
Secchi, S.J., and seems to be a very excellent instrument. It absorbs a
very small quantity of light, and is therefore admirably adapted for
stellar observations. The inventor has analyzed with it the spectrum of the
light emitted by the star Antarés. It is of a red color; the luminous bands
have been resolved into bright lines, and the dark ones are checkered with
light and dark lines, so there is no black foundation.--_The Reader._
_The Heat-conductibility of Mercury_.--M. Gripon, who has been making
experiments after Peclet's method, thinks he has demonstrated that if the
conducting power of silver be regarded as 100, that of mercury is equal to
3.54. He places mercury, therefore, the lowest in the scale of metals, as
far as the conductibility of heat is concerned. It is strange that electric
conductivity is quite different, being represented by the figures
1.80.--_Science Review_.
_Penetration of Platinum and Iron by Hydrogen_.--From time to time we
have reported the discoveries of Troost and Deville in this field of
research. These conclusions have recently been collected by the master of
the mint, Mr. Thomas Graham, in an admirable paper published in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society. He thinks that this wonderful penetration
is connected with a power resident in the above-mentioned and certain other
metals to liquefy and absorb hydrogen, which latter is possibly in the
condition of a metallic vapor. Platinum in the form of wire or plate at a
low, red heat may take up and hold 3.8 volumes of hydrogen, measured cold;
but it is by palladium that the property in question appears to be
possessed in the highest degree. Palladium foil from the hammered metal,
condensed so much as 643 times its volume of hydrogen, at a temperature
under 100° C. The same metal had not the slightest absorbent power for
either oxygen or nitrogen. The capacity of fused palladium (as also of
fused platinum) is considerably reduced, but foil or fused palladium, a
specimen of which Mr. Graham obtained from Mr. G. Matthey, absorbed 68
volumes of the gas. Mr. Graham thinks that a certain degree of porosity may
be admitted to exist in all these metals.--_Science Review_.
{285}
_Improvements in the Barometer_.--Some important improvements have
recently been effected in the Aneroid barometer by Messrs. Cook &; Sons,
the opticians. Although the Aneroid, under ordinary circumstances, has been
shown by Mr. Glaisher and others to be very much more effective and
satisfactory in its results than could have been hoped, still, under
conditions which bring rapid changes of pressure into play, the instrument
when it returns to the nominal pressure does not always indicate correctly.
This results from the motion being communicated to the index axle by a
chain, and this chain, from other considerations, is the weakest part of
the instrument, and is the first acted upon by climactic influences, rust,
etc. Mr. Cook has abolished this chain altogether, substituting for it an
almost invisible driving-band of gold or platinum, and the result of this
great improvement is that the Aneroid may now be looked upon as an almost
perfect instrument for scientific research. Several such Aneroids, placed
under the receiver an air-pump, not only match absolutely together, but all
return unfailingly to one and the same indication--_The Reader_
------
Original.
New Publications.
1. Frederick The Great And His Court.
An Historical Romance. By L. Mühlbach.
Translated from the German
by Mrs. Chapman Coleman and her
daughters. New York: Appleton & Co.
1867. 12mo, pp. 434.
2. Berlin And Sans-Souci; or, Frederick
The Great and His Friends.
An Historical Romance. Author,
translators, and publishers the same.
New York. 1867. 12mo, pp. 391.
3. Joseph II. and His Court.
An Historical Romance. By the same.
Translated from the German by
Adelaide de V. Chaudbron; complete
in one volume. New York: Appleton & Co.
1867. 8vo, double columns, pp. 343.
We know nothing of the writer of these works, save the works themselves,
and even them we know only in the translations before us. The last-named
volume reads more like an original work in English than the others. Mrs.
Chapman Coleman and her daughters appear not to have learned the proper use
of _shall_ and _will_, and make now and then the same sort of
blunder the Frenchman did when he fell into the river and exclaimed: "I
_will_ be drowned, and nobody _shall_ help me out." The use of
_shall_ and _will_ is a little arbitrary in English. _Shall_
in the first person simply foretells, in the second and third persons it
commands; _will_ in the first person promises or expresses a
determination or resolution, in the second and third persons it simply
foretells. The same rule applies to _should_ and _would_. The
Scotch, Irish, and most foreigners are very apt to reverse the rule, as do
some New-Yorkers and most western writers and speakers.
These works themselves are too historical for romances, and too romantic
for histories. Unless one is exceedingly familiar with the real history of
the times, one never knows whether he is reading history or only romance.
The historical predominates in them, and most people will read them as
histories rather than romances, and thus imbibe many erroneous views of
real persons and events. The Empress Maria Theresa is praised enough and
more than enough, so far as words go, both as a woman and as a sovereign,
but she is, after all, represented very untruthfully as weak, sentimental,
permitting her ministers to persuade her to adopt measures to which she is
conscientiously opposed, and really ruinous to the empire. She is
arbitrary, despotic, and the slave of her confessor. The author even
repeats the silly story that Kaunitz persuaded her, in order to further his
policy, to write an autograph letter to Madame Pompadour, the mistress of
Louis XV., and to praise her for her virtue and modesty, a story invented,
it is said, by Frederick the Great. The _béte noir_ of the writer is
the clergy, and alike whether Catholic or Protestant.
{286}
The author sympathizes from first to last with Joseph II.; thinks the
Josephine reforms or pretended reforms very just, very wise in themselves,
but that the people were too ignorant and superstitious to appreciate them.
From first to last humanity takes precedence of God and the state of the
church. The great divinity the author worships is the mutual love of man
and woman, and the greatest evil that afflicts humanity, or at least
princes and princesses, is that they cannot follow the inclinations of
their own heart, but must sacrifice their affections to the demands of
state policy.
Joseph II. is a great favorite with the author, but Frederick the Great is
her hero. He is always great, noble, wise, just, with a most loving heart,
which he sacrifices to the necessities of state. No censure is breathed
against his infamous conduct in invading and taking possession of Silesia,
without even a color of right, and without even the formality of declaring
war against Austria, and while Austria, unsuspicious of any invasion, is
wholly unprepared to resist it, and embarrassed by a disputed succession.
He was successful, and in our times success is proof of right. Frederick
was utterly without principle, without faith of any sort, a
_philosophe_, corresponded with Voltaire, invited him to his court,
and even paid him a salary, and detested the clergy, and therefore was a
fitting idol of our modern liberals and humanitarians, and worshippers of
FORCE like Carlyle.
Joseph the Second, we are inclined to believe, was sincere, and really
wished to benefit the nation committed to his charge, and he gave proof of
it in revoking most of the changes he attempted, and dying as a Christian.
He was vain and ambitious, and was led astray by the philosophy of his
times, and his unprincipled minister, Prince Kaunitz, a legacy from his
mother. He, like all the philosophers of the eighteenth century, understood
nothing of the laws of continuity, and supposed anything he decided to be
for the good of his people, however contrary to all their most deeply
cherished convictions and their most inveterate habits, could be forced
upon them by power, and should be received with grateful hearts. Two things
he appears to never have known, that despotism cannot found liberty, and
that power must, if it would make people happy, suffer them to be happy in
their own. There was, in the eighteenth century, with the European rulers
and the upper classes much sincere and active benevolence--a real and
earnest desire to lighten the burdens of government and ameliorate the
condition of the people; and no one can read these volumes, with sufficient
knowledge to distinguish what in them is history from what is mere romance,
without being persuaded that real reforms would have gone much further, and
European society would have been far in advance of what it now is, if the
revolution of 1789 had never been attempted. All that was true in the
so-called principles of 1789 was favorably accepted by nearly all European
statesmen and sovereigns who were laboring peaceably and earnestly to
develop and apply it. The statesmen and sovereigns, unhappily, had utterly
false and mischievous views of the relation of the church to the state, and
imagined that the only way to reform society was to begin by subjecting the
spiritual to the temporal; but they went in this direction not so far as
went the old French revolution. Indeed, the great lesson of history is that
the attempt to effect real social reforms by raising the people against
legitimate authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical, always turns out a
failure. Some good may be gained on one side, but is sure to be more than
overbalanced by the evils effected on another side.
As purely literary works, these historical romances possess a high degree
of merit, and prove that the writer has rare powers of description and
analysis. They read like the genuine histories, and from them alone it is
impossible to say where the real history ends and the romance begins, so
completely is the verisimilitude maintained throughout. If, as we are told,
they are the production of a female pen, as they bear indubitable evidence
of being, they are truly remarkable productions. The characters introduced
are all, or nearly all, historical, and if not all or always faithfully
reproduced, they are presented without any violence to the generally
received history of the two courts described. There is a little too much
German sentimentality in them, if faithfully translated, to suit our taste,
and more than we believe is usually to be found in imperial or royal
courts; and the _liaisons_ of princes are treated with too much
lenity, if not downright approbation, to have a good moral effect; but they
indicate a rare mastery of the subjects they treat, and intellectual powers
of a very high order.
{287}
They are by no means faultless, and their spirit and tone are pagan rather
than Christian; but they who are familiar with the history of the two
courts described, and are accustomed to master the works they read instead
of being mastered by them, may read them even with profit.
Lectures On Christian Unity,
delivered in St. Ann's Church, Eighth Street, during the season of
Advent, 1866, with an appendix on the condition of the Anglican
Communion, and of the Eastern Churches. By the Rev. Thomas S. Preston,
Pastor of St. Ann's Church and Chancellor of the diocese. 12mo, pp. 264.
New-York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
Father Preston's style is natural, earnest, and direct. He is too anxious
to impress truth on the minds of his readers to load his pages with
rhetorical ornaments; too resolute in his opinions to hesitate at the most
downright and unmistakable expression of them. His ideas are clear, and
therefore his style has the two chief requisites of all good writing,
clearness and simplicity. It has also the beauty which invariably radiates
from a devout heart. Love of God, love of the Blessed Virgin and the
saints, love of the holy church and all her teachings and her ways,
illuminate every chapter with the light of an unaffected piety. And like
the majority of really devout controversialists, he writes without rancor
or bitterness. "No true Catholic," he says, "can be intemperate in speech,
much less in heart. .... When we speak of the claims of our religion or
announce our doctrines and urge them upon men, it is not to advance our own
opinions so much as to benefit mankind, and promote their best happiness,
temporal and spiritual. We feel that the church answers the very questions
which are agitating their souls; that it responds to the wants of their
spiritual being, now unsatisfied; that it is the only and the divine
barrier to infidelity so fast increasing among us. ... It is in this spirit
that these lectures are begun, with the earnest desire for truth, and a
comprehensive charity for all who differ from us."
The first of the four lectures comprised in this volume proves from reason,
Scripture, and the writings of the primitive fathers the necessity of unity
among all who profess the Christian faith. The second shows how impossible
it is of attainment under the theory of Protestantism, which holds that
everything concerning faith and salvation must be left to the private
judgment of each individual, and that no external authority has power to
bind the conscience or compel the obedience of believing men. There can be
no unity of belief unless there be an admitted standard of truth; and under
the Protestant theory such a standard cannot be found. There is no church
which can be such an authority, for, according to the doctrines of all the
reformed bodies, a church has no authority except that given to it by the
members. As then the members are not infallible, the church cannot be. The
Bible cannot be the authority; for history shows that the Scriptures,
subjected to private interpretation, have never been able to effect any
agreement whatever; and, moreover, it is practically impossible to prove
either the authenticity or inspiration of the sacred books without falling
back upon the authority of the church. The objections to setting up the
consent of the majority or the opinions of antiquity as a standard of
doctrine are likewise exposed with clearness, though very briefly. The
third lecture is devoted to an examination of the claims of Protestantism
to represent the Church of Christ, and a survey of the present condition
and history of the principal reformed bodies. In lecture the fourth the
claims of the Catholic Church upon the obedience of mankind are summarized
with beautiful lucidity and eloquence.
An appendix of 100 pages contains an interesting and valuable note on the
position of the Anglican churches, and some welcome information respecting
the church union movement, from which it is hardly necessary to say that
Father Preston expects no good. Neither is he so sanguine of happy results
from the ritualistic movement as a writer in a recent number of this
magazine; but of these, as of all other matters, he speaks with his
accustomed charity. A second part of the appendix gives an account of the
present position of the Eastern churches.
We regard this as the best work Father Preston has written, and we
earnestly join in the hope he expresses in his modest preface, that it "may
reach some minds who are seeking the truth, and lead them to the haven of
rest."
{288}
Lectures on doctrines of the Catholic Church are a powerful means of
conversion to the faith. Never were the public better disposed to inquire,
and more ready to listen to the claims of the church, than at present, and,
wherever lectures of this character have been given, their fruits have been
found more abundant than was anticipated.
The Life Of St. Dominic And A Sketch Of The Dominican Order.
With an introduction by the most Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.D., Archbishop of
San Francisco. P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street.
This is not a reprint of F. Lacordaire's Life, but an original biography,
accompanied by a history of the Dominican order brought down to the present
day. It is from the pen of an anonymous English author, and resembles the
best works of the modern school of English Catholic writers in the care and
elegance with which it has been prepared. No one could have introduced it
more suitably to the American public than the illustrious Archbishop of San
Francisco, who is himself one of the brightest ornaments of the Dominican
order in modern times. It is the history of a great man and of a great
order, given in a moderate compass and an attractive style, and, of course,
well worth the perusal of every intelligent reader, whether Catholic or
Protestant.
The Journal Of Maurice De Guérin.
With an Essay by Matthew Arnold, and a Memoir by Saint-Beuve. Edited by
G. S. Trebutien. Translated by Edward Thornton Fisher. 12mo. pp. 153. New
York, Leypoldt & Hoyt. 1867.
Our readers, already so familiar with the character and writings of Eugénie
de Guérin from the frequent notices they have received, especially of her
Journal and Letters, will be glad to know that this journal of her so much
loved brother Maurice has been brought before the public.
In perusing the charming journal and mournful letters of Eugénie our
curiosity must needs be awakened to know more of her gifted brother, of
whom these pages of love speak so constantly. We have only to say that in
this volume that curiosity may be satisfied. Our readers will see depicted
the efforts of a soul vainly striving to find God outside of God in the
worship of nature, and at last returning, wearied and disappointed, like
the prodigal son to his father's home and embrace. Maurice de Guérin, who
had fallen away into heartless and godless pantheism, died kissing the
crucifix.
"The Catholic Publication Society" announces an American edition of a book
just published in London: "The Clergy and the Pulpit, in their relations to
the People,"
M. l'Abbé Mallois, chaplain to Napoleon III.
------
Books Received.
From Hon. W. H. Seward, Secretary of State. Washington, D. C, Diplomatic
Correspondence, relating to Foreign Affairs for 1865. Parts I., II., and
III.; also Part IV., being an appendix to the other three parts, containing
letters and documents with reference to the assassination of President
Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward, with extracts
from the press of Europe, and letters from public communities, of
condolence and sympathy, inspired by inspired by these events. 8vo.
From Kelly & Piet. Baltimore, Md, Devotion to the Holy Guardian Angels, in
the form of Considerations, Prayers, etc. Translated from the Italian of
Rev. P. de Mattel. S. J. 32mo. pp. 229. Price 50 cts.
From P. O'Shea, New York. The Life of St. Dominic and a Sketch of the
Dominican Order, with an introduction by Most Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.D. 1
vol. 12mo. pp. 370. Price $1.50.--The Gentle Skeptics; or, Essays and
Conversations of a Country Justice on the Authenticity in Truthfulness of
the Old Testament Records. By Rev. C. Walworth. New edition, revised. 1
vol. 12mo. Price $1.50.
From Ruttenberg & Co., Newberg, New York. An Address in behalf of Universal
Education with Religious Toleration. By the Hon. J. Monell. Pamphlet.
From Lawrence Kehoe, New York. Three Phases of Christian Love. By Lady
Herbert, of Lea. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 315. Price $1.50
From Dayton Ohio, we have received two pamphlets namely: the Divinity of
Christ, a sermon preached in the Holy Trinity Church, Dayton, Ohio, at the
conclusion of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ; St.
Antony: Alban Butler and Local Gossip of the Dayton Journal. By X.
From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New. York, Lectures on Christian unity,
delivered in St. Ann's Church, New York, during the season of Advent, 1866,
with an Appendix on the condition of the Anglican Communion, etc. By Thomas
S. Preston, Pastor of St. Ann's Church. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 264. Price
$1.50--The Christian armed against the Seductions of the World, etc.
Translated from the Italian by Father Ignatius Spencer. 1 vol. 18mo. pp.
320, 50 cts.--Devotion to St. Joseph By Rev. Father Joseph Anthony
Patrignani, S. J. Translated from the French. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 360. Price
the 63 cts.--Fourth Annual Report of the Society for the Protection of the
Destitute.
From the author. Reconstruction of the Union., in a letter to Hon. E. D.
Morgan. U. S. Senator from New York, from Judge Edmonds. New York American
News Co. 8vo. Pamphlet, pp. 89.
From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. Manual of the Lives of the Popes, from
St. Peter to Pius IX. By John Charles Earle, B.A. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 332.
Price $1.25.
------
{289}
The Catholic World.
Vol. NO. 27, June 1867
Translated from Le Correspondant
Lectures and Public Conferences Among the Ancients.
I.
_Nil sub sole novum;_ there is nothing absolutely new under the sun.
Apart from the sciences and their application, our age differs less than we
suppose from the ages that preceded it. Fancying ourselves pure Frenchmen
of the nineteenth century, we discern upon a nearer view numerous traits of
resemblance to the contemporaries of Pliny and Plutarch.
"Who will deliver us from Greek and Roman shackles?" cried the author of
Gastronomie, in a fit of witty ill-humor. It is to be feared that for many
a long year we are condemned to imitate the Latins and Athenians whom we
love to slander even while copying them. What matter how unconsciously we
borrow from them? Many things besides the game that made the amusement of
our infancy may be considered renovations of Greek originals. Fashions,
customs, pleasures even, are ours, not by right of invention, but of
inheritance; and what we take for new is sometimes merely the old
refurbished.
If there be a novelty, for the mass of the people who do not pride
themselves on erudition, it is to be found in the lectures or conferences,
to which the public is bidden every winter. Tested first successfully in
Paris, through the enterprise of a few private individuals, they afterward,
favored by the influence of higher powers, reached the provinces--invaded
them, I should have said, if the word had not an offensive signification,
far from my thoughts. It is surprising to watch the rapid development of
this custom, exhibited as it is in the fact that since the second year a
thousand _chaires_ have sprung up in various parts of France. Modest
townships, no less than great cities, have their course of lectures, and
one peruses with interest the list of lecturers, [Footnote 55] some of whom
are accustomed by profession to communicating their ideas to an audience,
while others essay for the first time the public expression of their
opinions.
[Footnote 55: The _chaires_ have been lately interdicted to Prince
Albert de Brogile and to MM. Saint Marc Girardin, Cochin, Laboulaye,
and Jules Simon. We cannot help, while recording this ostracism,
deploring its effect upon French literature.--_Note of French
Editor_.]
{290}
In the ranks of volunteer instructors (without mentioning professors, who
are naturally called to assume such a position) lawyers elbow physicians,
the Catholic priest finds himself next to the Protestant minister, and
officers march abreast with men of letters. Nay more: women too are seen
taking part in these manly exercises, anxious to prove good the equality of
their sex with ours.
'Tis undeniably an odd spectacle to unaccustomed eyes, and there is no lack
of discussion and outcry upon the matter. But one need only read a few
pages from the pen of ancient authors to discover that what startles us
to-day as a thing without precedent, had passed into a well-known custom in
the earliest ages of Christianity. It is into the subject of lectures and
conferences among the ancients that I propose to inquire, as a topic
offering interest if not profit to those who like to compare antiquity with
our own times.
II.
Nowadays, thanks to the printing-press, which multiplies thought and
scatters it to the four winds of heaven, an author can enter into
communication with the public without going beyond the threshold of his
study. But among the ancients, when every copy of a work was painfully
executed by hand, who can estimate the pains, fatigue, and expense that
went to build up an incomplete publicity? What wonder then that an
historian like Herodotus introduced his book to public notice by reading it
aloud to the crowds assembled for the Olympic games, or that the people
paused to listen to him for days together? The author entered without delay
upon the enjoyment of his glory--the public into possession of a
masterpiece. Later, we learn that Prodicus, the sophist of Ceos, went from
city to city, reciting his allegory of Hercules between Virtue and
Pleasure, and engraving it upon the memory of all Greece.
Other similar instances might be cited, but merely as exceptions to the
customs anterior to the Christian era; nor was it in Greece but at Rome
that public lecturing first became a popular usage.
In the reign of Augustus, when eloquence had become _pacifice_ (or
narrow-minded, as the bitter spirits who pined for ancient laxity would
have said), Asinius Pollio, having been transformed from a republican into
a courtier without sacrificing his love of letters, bethought himself to
replace the oratorical combats, for ever banished from senate and forum, by
establishing a school of declamation, and assemblies whither authors should
resort to read their works in public.[Footnote 56] It was erecting a stage
for the exhibition of wits who longed for notoriety, and the plan could not
fail to succeed. Augustus, in harmony, on this occasion, with popular
desire, lent a hearty consent to the innovation. Not only did he sit among
the audience without giving evidence of weariness or _ennui_, but he
took an active part in the literary exercises, reading in person, or
letting; Tiberius read for him, various compositions of his own.[Footnote
57]
[Footnote 56: Seneca the Rhetorician, Controv. V. Procem.]
[Footnote 57: Sustonius, Augustus, 85, 89.]
Without doubting that Augustus really enjoyed these intellectual
entertainments, I believe the encouragement of a harmless literature to
have been in accordance with his policy. Every pursuit that could turn
aside the Romans from too importunate an interest in state affairs was
favorably received. What time remained for meddling in public matters to
any man occupied with polishing poetical phrases or rounding rhetorical
periods? The chair replaced the tribune advantageously. While bread and
circus games satisfied the lower classes, distractions and diversions of a
nobler stamp were provided for more enlightened minds. In both cases the
conduct of Augustus was actuated by the same motive.
{291}
So well did public lectures second his designs that be might perhaps have
introduced the fashion if it had not already existed. Under the
circumstances his countenance only was required to elevate what seemed like
a modish caprice to the dignity and durability of an imperial institution.
Even the most suspicious and distrustful of this prince's successors
forbore to disturb an amusement so conducive to their own advantage. The
least favorably inclined were contented with depriving the assemblies of
their presence, and others esteemed it an honor to be counted among the
most attentive listeners. Nero especially, imperial artist and metromaniac,
seems to have honestly regarded these exercises as one of the glories of
his reign.
Every one who fancied himself a man of talent (and illusions upon such
points are common to the literary world in all ages) was glad to win renown
by exhibiting the fruits of midnight toil. With few exceptions, all authors
claimed the public ear: Lucan to recite his Pharsalia; Silius Italicus, his
Punic War; Statius, his Thebald, Achilleïd, and Silvae; Pliny, his
Panegyric of Trajan.[Footnote 58] I mention those authors only whose
writings have remained to us; but many others sought to charm a Roman
audience. The list would be long, of lecturers whose names, without their
works, have come down to posterity; orators of whom Pliny has introduced a
large number to us in enumerating his personal friends. Princes followed
the contagious example of Augustus. Claudius and Nero enjoyed the display
or their acquirements;[Footnote 59] Domitian recited poems which he
certainly never wrote; but what matter for that? he liked to give himself
the airs of a poet, and of a successful poet, we may be sure. Nero, at
least, did not solicit applause in borrowed plumes. In short, no verses
were too bad to seek a hearing. A mania for reading and writing raged
abroad. Horace satirizes this madness, but after Horace's own sweet,
graceful fashion. Juvenal exclaims with wrathful bitterness: "Am I for ever
to be a listener? Shall I never retaliate, (I who have been) so often
teased with the Theseïd of husky Codrus? One man recites his comedies with
impunity, and another his elegies. Shall huge Telephus consume my day
unpunished; or Orestes, full to the extremest margin of the book, written
even on the reversed pages, and not finished then?" [Footnote 60]
[Footnote 58: Suetonius; Lucan; Pliny the Younger, Let. III. 7, 18;
Juvenal, vii. 79]
[Footnote 59: Suetonius; Claudius, 41; Nero, 10.]
[Footnote 60: Juvenal, i, 1.]
The time for retaliation came at last. A desire seized him during the reign
of Adrian to bring forward the satires so long kept under lock and key, and
to emulate those whom he had ridiculed. He bored no one, it is true, but
none the less fatal were the results to himself: Several passages,
cordially received by the public, and invidiously interpreted among
courtiers, seemed to contain hostile allusions to an imperial favorite; and
the emperor, under pretext of appointing the poetic octogenarian to a
military command, sent the satirist to the extreme recesses of Egypt to
finish his days in honorable exile. [Footnote 61]
[Footnote 61: Suetonius, Juvenal]
The subjects of Roman lectures were exceedingly various; sometimes serious
and long-winded poems like those we have mentioned; sometimes comedies; but
oftener short poems, light and trifling, or sweet and tender, according to
the poet's vein. On exceptional occasions, some eloquent voice, disdaining
vulgar platitudes, aroused, with its noble accents, genuine Roman
sentiments; as on that day, in the Augustan era, when Cornelius Severus
deplored the death of Cicero and cursed his assassin in the glorious lines
that have been preserved to us. [Footnote 62]
[Footnote 62: Pliny the Younger, Letters, iv, 27; v. 17; vi. 15, 21;
viii.21.]
{292}
We notice as a singular fact that a lecturer endowed with a fine voice,
would sometimes content himself with reading passages from some ancient
poet, Ennius, for example; and with success too, if he read with taste.
[Footnote 63] But this was too low an aim to satisfy ambition. Men desired
fame and applause for themselves, and cared little to offer any works but
their own to the public.
[Footnote 63: Seneca, the Rhetor, Suasor, 7.]
No style was banished from these assemblies. One day an audience listened
to dialogues, or to philosophical and moral dissertations; on the next,
some lawyer, already well known to fame through important law-suits,
claimed a hearing. The lawyer who had gained his client's cause before the
tribunal, came to argue in behalf of his own intellect before the public,
[Footnote 64] caring more, perhaps, to win in the second suit than in the
first. History, too, seems to have held an important place in lectures, nor
did the speaker limit himself to events long since gone by. Rome within a
few years had lost several distinguished men, whose death Titinius Capito
commemorated. [Footnote 65] Strictly speaking, it might be considered a
funeral oration, intended to console friends and relatives without wounding
any individual. But the intrepid lecturer ventured upon volcanic soil, and
portrayed the history of recent years with so great liberty of speech that,
at the close of the first assembly, he was surrounded and urged to silence:
why wound the feelings of auditors who blushed to hear of acts they had not
blushed to commit? [Footnote 66]
[Footnote 64: Pliny the Younger, Lett. ii. 19; vii. 17.]
[Footnote 65: Ibid., viii, 12.]
[Footnote 66: Ibid., Lett. ix. 27.]
Probably he had reference to those informers who were expiating under
Trajan the favor and prosperity they had enjoyed under Domitian. That they
deserved scorn, there can be no doubt; but is it always easy to pass just
and impartial judgment upon contemporaries? Does not history run a chance
of resembling one of those retrospective reviews, before which, after a
change of rulers, the men of to-day lay complaints against the men of
yesterday?
Occasionally the choice of subjects was even more remarkable. The orator
Regulus, whom Pliny (usually so full of good will toward the subjects of
his criticism) unceasingly pursued with scornful hatred, loses his only
son. Not content with bestowing upon him magnificent obsequies, in which,
to strike all eyes with the spectacle of pompous woe, be sacrifices, upon
the funeral pile, the nightingales, parrots, dogs, and horses that the
child had loved; he would perpetuate his son's memory and spread abroad the
proofs of his own grief. Portraits and images wrought in wax, or copper, or
marble, ivory, silver, or gold--the most varied works of painter or
sculptor, suffice him not. It occurs to him that he himself is an artist--a
word-artist, and now or never his powers should be utilized. His son's life
and death would be an admirable text for a lecture. Quick to the work!
Great griefs are mute, says Seneca, but Regulus thinks otherwise; and in a
few days he gives forth to a numerous assembly an address which cannot fail
to do credit to his literary talents and his paternal sentiments. The
comedy (for what else can we call it?) met with success. So fine a piece
was not composed to delight a single audience, and Regulus, being rich
enough to pay the expenses of glory, addressed a sort of circular to the
magistrates of every important town throughout Italy and the provinces,
begging them to select their best declaimer and confide to him the reading
of this precious work of art. The wish of Regulus was gratified. [Footnote
67]
[Footnote 67: Pliny the Younger, iv. 2, 7.]
Pliny's letter, giving these curious details, shows also that the fashion
of recitations had spread beyond Rome. Testimony to the same effect abounds
in ancient authors. Few cities were without public lectures. In imitation
of Italy, the practice was adopted in Africa, Gaul and Spain. Of Greece I
do not speak, for Greece is _par excellence_ the land of literary
recreations, and we will go thither all in good time.
{293}
III.
It would appear from various texts that Rome at least had certain seasons
for lectures: the months of April and August, and sometimes of July, being
especially selected, no doubt because affairs before the tribunals were
then less frequent. Authors took advantage of these periods of leisure to
supplant the magistrates. But that each aspirant might have his turn,
meeting succeeded meeting. "Poets abound this year," writes Pliny; "we have
had recitations almost every day this month." Innocent satisfaction of a
mind enjoying the triumph of good taste and literature in these
exhibitions, or _osentationes_, as they were termed by severe judges!
Seneca advises his pupil Lucilius not to stoop to objects so paltry. One
would suppose that the frequency of public lectures would have led to the
erection of a public edifice--of an amphitheatre especially devoted to
these exercises. We find, however, that such a thing was never thought of,
and that each lecturer was expected to provide his platform as best he
could. Poor poets, a never-failing race, spoke in public squares or at the
baths. [Footnote 68] Petronius in his Satyricon depicts the old poet
Eumolpus declaiming anywhere and everywhere, in the streets or under
peristyles, spouting his verses to every comer, at the risk of being driven
away by the wearied crowd or of driving them away, a circumstance not more
flattering to a poet. Eumolpus is but a fictitious personage, but he is no
doubt drawn from life. Petronius describes what he has often witnessed; and
even if we could doubt this, Horace and Juvenal would bear witness to the
fidelity of the portrait.
[Footnote 68: Horace, Sat. I. iv. 75.]
Even when the crowd was attentive, these meetings in the open air had their
inconveniences. Apuleius was to speak in Carthage, and great was his
reputation. The people crowded and pushed and hustled to get a front place.
So far so good, for what can be pleasanter than to see one's fellow
creatures suffocated in one's honor? Apuleius began in his finest tones,
the lecture marched apace, the most striking point was reached, enthusiasm
stood on tip-toe--when, alas for the vanity of human hopes! a pelting
shower fell upon all this success, dampening eloquence, putting the excited
audience to flight, and sending the orator home wet to the skin, with his
triumph changed to disaster. [Footnote 69]
[Footnote 69: Apuleius, Florides.]
Accidents of this nature rarely occurred, at least to men of reputation
like Apuleius, for addresses were usually delivered under cover in a hall.
A suitable apartment was easily found by any one who could afford to hire
one. Sometimes, too, a friend would kindly lend his house, as for instance
Titinius Capito, who liked to render services of this kind. "His mansion,"
says Pliny, "belongs to all those who have addresses to deliver." A simple
dining-room sufficed for the occasions when only a few persons were
expected; but these were exceptional. [Footnote 70] The place of meeting
being selected, seats and benches were placed for the audience. A stage was
erected for the lecturer, raised above the public, so that none of his
gestures might be lost, and that he might judge correctly of the effect
produced. The audience consisted of men only, it being contrary to received
customs that a woman should appear in a lecture room. But an ingenious plan
was devised by which literary Roman ladies could enjoy the entertainment.
One part of the hall was sometimes curtained off with draperies, and behind
this shelter, a woman could listen at her ease, without wounding
conventional ideas. [Footnote 71]
[Footnote 70: Tacitus, Dial. de Or. 9.]
[Footnote 71: Pliny the Younger Letters viii. 12, 21]
The lecture was announced several days in advance, and ceremonious
invitations were issued to friends and personages of distinction. This
precaution proved useful in securing an audience, and fulfilled at the same
time a duty of politeness, the neglect of which implied indifference to the
courteous usages of the time. While slaves were carrying invitations
through the city, the host remained at home, and, in order to make his
voice clearer and more flexible, enveloped his throat in woolen cloths, and
imbibed soothing beverages.
{294}
The great day comes at last. The benches are filled. The lecturer only is
wanting. He appears, and at sight of him a murmur of satisfaction passes
round the hall. He takes the chair, often surrounded by his best friends,
who sit beside him to encourage him with their presence and to enjoy his
success. [Footnote 72] In order to appear in full lustre, he has arrayed
himself in a new white toga, dressed his hair and beard carefully, and
placed upon his finger a ring adorned with a precious stone. He unrolls a
manuscript; utters a few modest phrases in apology for his temerity, asking
of course the indulgence of the audience, but soliciting their justice
also, since he seeks before all things an exact criticism, revealing the
defects in his work, that he may correct them. This preamble being well
received, he enters upon the discourse. In reading he tries to give effect
to the words by a varied intonation of voice, by turns of his head and
movement of his eyes. Soon faint cries of "Excellent perfect!" arise in
various parts of the hall to charm his ear; but he feigns not to hear them.
He pauses, remarking, "I am afraid all this bores you. Perhaps I ought to
suppress a few passages, lest you should be wearied." But the audience are
too polite to admit that a short lecture would not displease them. "Oh! no,
no, skip nothing; we do not wish to lose a word." He proceeds, only to go
through the same farce a little later. "I have already abused your
patience; it is time to stop and release you from the remainder." "Read on,
read on! it is charming to hear you." He reads to the end; the admiration
grows, rises, bubbles over! where will it end? Thunders of applause follow,
and the lecturer is inwardly overjoyed, but his modesty never deserts him.
"Enough friends, enough!" he murmurs, "This is too much," Of course the
transports are redoubled, and our lecturer returns home, believing himself
a Virgil, a Sallust, or a Cicero.
[Footnote 72: Pliny the Younger, Letters, vi. 6.]
We have described here a successful lecture; but not always, it must be
confessed, did the hero of the occasion carry away with him impressions so
agreeable. Sometimes an author had to renounce the pleasure of reading his
own composition, because of a weak or unpleasing voice, leaving the task of
delivery to a reader, near whom he sat, accompanying the recitation with
glance and gesture. [Footnote 73]
[Footnote 73: Pliny the Younger, Letters, viii. 1; ix. 34.]
Then, too, there were a thousand petty mishaps, impossible to foresee or
avoid, one of which sufficed to spoil the occasion. Passierus Paulus, a
Roman knight, was addicted to the composition of elegiac verses; a family
peculiarity, it would seem, as he counted Propertius among his ancestors.
One day, among the numerous assemblage of invited guests, sat Javolenus
Priscus, a friend of the poet, though a little crazy. Paulus opened the
recitation of his elegies with one commencing: "Priscus, you order me--"
"I! faith! I ordered nothing," cried the crack-brained Javolenus, amid
explosions of laughter from the audience. Behold Passierus Paulus greatly
disconcerted! The absurdity of Javolenus had thrown a cloud over the
entertainment, which proves, observes Pliny, that not only should a
lecturer be himself of sane mind, but he should take care that his
listeners be so too.
Paulus grieved over the ill success of his lecture; not so Claudius when an
accident chanced to trouble the course of his recitation. He was at the
first pages of the address, when a remarkably stout auditor cracked and
brought to the ground a bench with his weight. The assembly roared with
laughter. The good-natured emperor was not in the least annoyed; and, when
silence was at last reestablished, he broke it again and again with peals
of merriment, carrying the audience along with him, at the thought of the
fat man's downfall.
{295}
But a graver difficulty presented itself occasionally in the unwillingness
of the public to partake of the feast of reason prepared for their
enjoyment. The frequency and length of these lectures, which would last
sometimes through two or three meetings, had tired many people, who came no
more, except under protest, saying with Juvenal (iii. 9), "No desert but
would be more endurable than Rome in lecturing times." Pliny bemoans this
falling off and sees therein a grievous sign for literature--decline and
decay. "The guests," he says, "stand about public places amusing themselves
with frivolous talk. From time to time they send to ask if the lecturer has
arrived, or if the preface is over, or the lecture far advanced. Then they
go in, but slowly and with regret. Nor do they remain to the close. One
slips out adroitly; another stalks unceremoniously away with his head in
the air. It is said that, in our fathers' time, Claudius, while walking
through his palace one day, heard a great noise, and, on asking the cause,
was told that Nonianus was reading one of his works. The prince went
immediately to join the assembly; but to-day prayers and entreaties will
not induce the most unoccupied man to come, or, if he does come, it is only
to complain of having lost a day because he has not lost it." [Footnote 74]
[Footnote 74: Pliny the Younger, Letters, i. 13; iii. 18.]
To go away before the close was a mark of ill breeding, as Pliny
demonstrates; an infringement of that code of proprieties to which auditors
were expected to adapt themselves. Attention was, of course, required, but
many other things were prescribed. The excellent Plutarch, who seems to
have shared Pliny's weakness for this kind of exercise, was at the pains to
compose a treatise for his disciples upon the art of listening. "In a
listener," he says, "a supercilious air, a severe face, wandering eyes, a
stooping attitude, legs carelessly crossed, nay, more, a wink or nod, a
word in a neighbor's ear, an affected smile, a sad and dreamy look,
indecent yawns, and all other things of that nature, are reprehensible
defects to be scrupulously avoided." [Footnote 75]
[Footnote 75: How to Listen, 13.]
Elsewhere he cites with approbation the conduct of Rusticus Arulenus: "One
day when I was making a public address in Rome, Arulenus sat among the
audience. In the middle of the conference, a soldier brought him a letter
from the emperor. A profound silence prevailed in an instant, and I myself
paused to give him time to read the despatches. This he declined to do, and
only opened his letter when the address was ended and the audience had
dispersed; conduct which won for him the admiration of every one." _Of
every one_, and especially, I imagine, of Plutarch, who must have been
flattered, indeed, to see that so grand a personage would not let his
attention wander even to state affairs.
Plutarch at least exacts of his audience only what may be called good
breeding. In this he agrees with Epictetus, who, while advising his
disciple not to attend the public readings of poets and orators (believing,
in his austere philosophy, that time might be better employed), recommends
him, if he must go, to preserve decency and gravity, not indulging in
boisterous and disorderly demonstrations, or wounding his host by giving
evidence of weariness. But Pliny is not satisfied with this. In maintaining
a religious attention at the lecture, the listener had fulfilled only half
his duties, the other half being applause. To leave without exhibiting
lively satisfaction was simply significant of boorish ill breeding. We find
Pliny in despair when one of his friends has not obtained the meed of
praise he had a right to expect from the audience. "For my own part," he
says, "I could not refuse my esteem and admiration to those who interest
themselves in literary labors." Before the lecture, he predicts in all
sincerity the most startling success; and at its close, pronounces upon it
in equally good faith a pompous eulogium. [Footnote 76]
[Footnote 76: Epictetus, Manual, 51.]
Sometimes the facile admiration borders on simplicity. Sentius Angurinus
reads a poem, and the benevolent critic exclaims, "In my judgment, there
has been nothing better done for years;" giving a specimen of the lines,
that the reader may pass his own judgment. It is a little piece in which
he, Pliny, is compared to Calvus and Catullus and ranked, of course, above
both, without taking into consideration that he has the wisdom of a Cato
into the bargain. "What delicacy!" cries the tickled critic, "what nicety
of expression what vivacity!" Of course, who would not see charms in a
madrigal containing these pleasant sentiments about one's self? It would be
fastidious indeed to fail in admiration of such a production.
Sentius loudly proclaims the poetic talent of Pliny; and Pliny reciprocates
with the announcement that Sentius is one of those rare geniuses who do
honor to their age. It was an exchange of good offices--a mutual adulation
in which the lecturer of to-day received back all that he had generously
lavished about him yesterday. Vanity more than the love of letters found
its meed in this interchange of courtesies.
We have already seen that on one side the disdain of serious thinkers, and
on the other public satiety, had ended by injuring the success of these
exhibitions. Solitude reigned about the lecturer, but should he on that
account desert his post? It was an extreme case not to be easily met, but
necessity is ingenious. New plans were invented for filling the hall. If an
audience would not come, an audience must be hunted up--recruited at any
cost. Clients and freedmen were borrowed from personal friends to fill the
benches. One orator gathered together a troop of famished wretches and gave
them a plentiful dinner. The guests, having eaten and rejoiced, were fired
with gastric gratitude, and vigorously clapped the poems of their
Amphitryon. This trade was carried on every day, and those who said their
admiration for a good dinner were called by the expressive name of
_laudicoeni_. Others bought applause cash down; but at a low price, if
they were not particular as to quality; contented, for instance, with
servants, who could be had for three _denarii_ apiece. At this rate,
persons of low estate could drive a lucrative business by hiring out their
services. A more simple method, however, than that of paying listeners by
the day, was making use of debtors if one had any; for what debtor, with
any sense of duty, could help attending the lectures of his creditors?
An audience collected thus did not trouble themselves much about listening,
but no matter for that if they would but applaud; and applaud they did, and
all the more vigorously in proportion to their inattention, as Pliny tells
us, and we may well believe. All that the orchestra needed was a leader to
give the signal to his docile troop, at the fine points, and to regulate
the degrees of enthusiasm. Applause was no mere trade; it had risen to the
dignity of a science. A skilful manager could provide every suitable
emotion, from a discreet and low-voiced approbation up to passionately
tumultuous enthusiasm. First came murmurs of pleasure, starts of gratified
surprise and involuntary exclamations, followed by a silence no less
flattering. Gradually the excitement got beyond control, and manifested
itself by stamping of feet; by cries, nay, howls; to use the words of
Pliny, _ululatus large supersunt_. Togas were shaken; benches trembled
beneath the blows of trampling feet. Persons who sat near the lecturer, and
could take such a liberty, ran to embrace him in token of gratitude at the
delight he had afforded them. If perchance the speaker was an emperor,
respect did not allow them to kiss his sacred lips, but only to pour forth
expressions of gratitude.
{297}
The joy would become so universal, as we see in the case of Nero, that the
senate decreed solemn thanksgiving to be offered to the gods; and the
verses of the prince, graven in golden letters on the walls of the capitol,
to be dedicated to Jupiter, as the noblest offering earth could consecrate
to heaven. [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: Pliny the Younger, Letters, ii. 10, 14; Martial, i. 77;
Suetonius, Nero, 10.]
IV.
We see by Pliny's lamentations that lectures in his day were not in vogue
as they had been formerly. But it must be remembered that, even when
lectures were at the height of popularity, they attracted only the
cultivated class, so-called; that is to say, the minority. The Roman people
did not pride themselves upon a marked taste for refined intellectual
pleasures, finding more fascination in spectacles and circus games.
Statius, according to contemporary accounts, appears to have been the poet
most eagerly sought; but numerous as was the audience that thronged to hear
him, there is little doubt, that, if some famous gladiator had appeared in
the arena, Statius would have stood a fair chance of addressing empty
benches. While the seats of the small lecture-room filled slowly with
hardly earned auditors, the amphitheatre steps were never vast enough to
accommodate the struggling multitude.
Only in Greece do we find a nation truly sensitive to purely intellectual
enjoyments. There the simple artisan understood and appreciated
philosophers, poets, and orators. The art of eloquence never left him
indifferent, and he would leave his trade to run to a discourse as to a
feast. With this disposition, what seemed to the Romans a pastime for the
few, was the chief interest of many members of Greek society. Public
speaking was but an accident in the lives of Pliny and his friends, while
to the clever men of Athens or Alexandria it became a profession. Anyone
who believed himself gifted with eloquence became a sophist or rhetor, and
with a little tact and assurance could count upon that kind of success
which is measured by a numerous audience. Some distinction between these
two classes of men, the sophist and the rhetor, should be made here. The
former claimed to have succeeded the philosophers, with the right to teach
the people, and to develop the commonplaces of politics, morals, and even
of religion. They made themselves preachers to the populace, and sometimes
to princes, as, for instance, when we find Dion Chrysostom holding forth
concerning the duties of royalty in Trajan's palace. Rhetors, on the other
hand, were professors of eloquence. Their avowed aim was to please, but,
while less proud in pretensions than the sophists, they were in reality
equally presumptuous, assuming to teach art not only by explaining its
roles, but also by offering in their own compositions finished models of
rhetoric, in the genuine belief that they had garnered up the heritage of
Demosthenes and Eschines. As all pretensions belong together, the sophist
often combined his duties with those of the rhetor; witness the Dion above
mentioned.
This race of public speakers lingered about the towns of Greece, and also
of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Lybia. Then, finding these limits too narrow,
they burst beyond them and invaded the Latin countries.
About the time of the Antonines, that is to say, when exhausted Roman
genius seemed doomed to barrenness, there came a _renaissance_ of
Greek letters. Many Romans preferred Greek to Latin for writing, and not
merely as a caprice or literary foppishness, loving to deck itself in
public with the riches of a foreign language. Marcus Aurelius converse with
himself in Greek in the memoirs where be makes his examination of
conscience. Why should we wonder that an audience should most readily
collect in Rome to listen to some elegant rhetorician from the East?
The reputation to be gained from public speaking was too enviable to admit
of delay in its acquisition. All persons did not even wait for manhood
before claiming the attention of the public.
{298}
Far from pleading youth as an excuse, they gloried in it. Hermogenes of
Tarsus made his _début_ at fifteen, as Marcus Aurelius tells us in his
travels. "In me," says Hermogenes haughtily, "you see an orator who has had
no master, an orator to whom years are still wanting." A sterile precocity
it proved to be, making him, according to his enemies, an old man among
youths, and a youth among old men.
Emulation fired women also. Many, and among their number young girls,
undertook to speak in public, and spoke effectively too, and with success.
History has left us the names of several of these muses, as the Greeks
sometimes called them. The muses did not reveal themselves too visibly to
their worshippers. A large curtain veiled them from the audience, lest
their beauty should make too dazzling an impression. No longer as at Rome
did draperies shelter the woman from the public; it was the public screened
from feminine attractions.