annual exhibition that is peculiar to the Venetians. “A set of artisans,
by the help of poles, which they laid across each others’ shoulders,
built themselves up in a kind of pyramid; so that you saw a pile of men
in the air, of four or five rows, rising one above another. The weight
was so equally distributed that every man was well able to bear his part
of it; the stories, if they might be so called, growing less and less as
they advanced higher and higher. A little boy presented the top of the
pyramid, who, after a short space, leaped off, with a great deal of
dexterity, into the arms of one who caught him at the bottom.” But this
was only the revival of an ancient feat, which, as we learn from the
following verses of the poet Claudian, was formerly practised among the
Romans:—
“_Vel qui mare arrum sese jaculantur in auras,
Corporaque adificant celeri cressentia nexu,
Queram compositam puer augmentatus in arcem
Emicat, et vinctas plantæ, vel eruribus hærens,
Pendulo librato figit vestigia sulta._”
_De Pr. et Obyb. Cono._
“Men pil’d on men, with active leaps arise,
And build the breathing fabric to the skies;
A sprightly youth above the topmast row
Paints the tall pyramid, and crowns the show.”
_Addison._
In the thirteenth century, these performances were introduced at
Constantinople, by a strolling company from Egypt, who afterwards
travelled to Rome, and thence through great part of Europe. They could
stand in various postures on horses while at full speed, and both mount
and dismount without stopping them; and their rope-dancers sometimes
extended the rope on which they poised themselves between the masts of
ships.
It appears also that the ancients taught animals to perform many tricks
that are still exhibited, and some even yet more extraordinary. In the
year 543, a learned dog was shown at the Byzantine court, which not only
selected, and returned to the several owners, the rings and ornaments of
the spectators, which were thrown together before him, but on being
asked his opinion respecting the character of some of the females who
were present, he expressed it by signs at once so significant and
correct, that the people were persuaded he possessed the spirit of
divination. In the reign of Galba, an elephant was exhibited at Rome
which walked upon a rope stretched across the theatre; and such was the
confidence reposed in his dexterity, that a person was mounted on him
while he performed the feat.
It must require the exercise not alone of vast patience, but also of
extraordinary cruelty, mingled perhaps with much kindness, to train
animals to exhibit a degree of intelligence approaching to that of human
beings. It is said that bears are taught to dance by being placed in a
den with a floor of heated iron: the animal, endeavouring to avoid the
smart to which his paws are thus exposed, rears himself on his hind
legs, and alternately raises them with the utmost rapidity, during all
which time a flageolet is played to him; and after this lesson has been
frequently repeated, he becomes so impressed with the associated
recollection of the music and the pain, that, whenever he hears the same
tune, he instinctively recurs to the same efforts, in order to escape
the fancied danger.
In the middle of the last century, there was an Englishman, named
Wildman, who excited great attention by the possession of a secret
through the means of which he enticed bees to follow him, and to settle
on his person without stinging him. A similar circumstance is related in
Francis Bruce’s voyage to Africa in 1698, in which mention is made of a
man who was constantly surrounded by a swarm of these insects, and who
had thence obtained the title of “King of the bees.”
Only one instance is recorded in ancient history of the art of supplying
the deficiency of hands by the use of toes; and that is of an Indian
slave belonging to the emperor Augustus, who, being without arms, could,
notwithstanding, wield a bow and arrows and put a trumpet to his mouth
with his feet.
Of late years some persons have exhibited themselves in the character of
stone-eaters; but although these are to be considered as mere jugglers,
yet it would appear that there have been others who actually possessed
the faculty of digesting similar substances. Of the instances on record
we shall merely select one, from the “_Dictionnaire Physique_,” of
father Paulian:—“The beginning of May 1760, there was brought to Avignon
a true lithophagus, or stone-eater, who had been found, about three
years before that time, in a northern island, by the crew of a Dutch
ship. He not only swallowed flints of an inch and a half long, a full
inch broad, and half an inch thick, but such stones as he could reduce
to powder, such as marble, pebbles, &c., he made up into paste, which
was to him a most agreeable and wholesome food. I examined this man with
all the attention I possibly could; I found his gullet very large, his
teeth exceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, and his stomach
lower than ordinary, which I imputed to the vast quantity of flints he
had swallowed, being about five and twenty, one day with another. His
keeper made him eat raw flesh with the stones, but could never induce
him to swallow bread; he would, however, drink water, wine, and brandy,
which last liquor appeared to afford him infinite pleasure. He usually
slept twelve hours a day, sitting on the ground, with one knee over the
other, and his chin resting on it; and when not asleep he passed the
greater part of his time in smoking.” In the year 1802, there was a
Frenchman, who, indeed, did not profess to eat stones, but who publicly
devoured at the amphitheatre, in the city of Lisbon, a side of raw
mutton, with a rabbit and a fowl, _both alive_: he advertised a
repetition of the experiment, with the addition of a live cat; but the
magistrates, deeming the exhibition too brutal for the public eye, would
not again allow its performance. Notwithstanding the public display of
this man, and the extraordinary fact of his having appeared to swallow
living animals, may rank him in the class of jugglers, it is still
probable that he was no impostor; for instances of such uncommon powers
of the stomach are by no means rare, and among others we read of another
Frenchman who was in the constant habit, as an amateur, of eating cats
alive, and was even strongly suspected of having devoured a child.
LEGENDS, &c. MIRACLES, &c.
A Legend[79] was originally a book used in the old Romish churches,
containing the lessons that were to be read in divine service. Hence
also the lives of saints and martyrs came to be called legends, because
chapters were read out of them at matins, and in the refectories of the
religious houses. The GOLDEN LEGEND is a collection of the lives of the
Saints, compiled by James De Varasse, better known by the Latin name of
J. De Veragine, Vicar-General of the Dominicans, and afterwards Bishop
of Genoa, who died in 1298. It was received into the church with the
most enthusiastic applause, which it maintained for 200 years; but, in
fact, it is so full of ridiculous and absurd romantic monstrosities,
that the Romanists themselves are now generally ashamed of it. On this
very account alone the word Legend got into general disrepute.
The following is stated to be the origin of those ecclesiastical
histories entitled Legends:—The professors in rhetoric, before colleges
were established in the monasteries where the schools were held,
frequently gave their pupils the life of some saint for a trial of their
talent at _amplification_. The students, being constantly at a loss to
furnish out their pages, invented most of these wonderful adventures.
Jortin observes, that the Christians used to collect out of Ovid, Livy,
and other pagan poets and historians, the miracles and portents, so
found there, and accommodated them to their own monks and saints. The
good fathers of that age, whose simplicity was not inferior to their
devotion, were so delighted with these flowers of rhetoric, that they
were induced to make a collection of these miraculous compositions; not
imagining that, at some distant period, they would become matters of
faith. Yet when James De Veragine, Peter Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira,
wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought for the materials in the
libraries of these monasteries; and, awakening from the dust the
manuscripts of amplification, imagined they made an invaluable present
to the world, by laying before them these voluminous absurdities. The
people received these pious fictions with all imaginable simplicity; and
as the book is adorned with a number of cuts, these miracles were
perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Fleury, Tillemont, Baillet,
Launoi, and Ballendus, cleared away much of the rubbish. The enviable
title of _Golden Legend_, by which James De Veragine called his work,
has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly express the character
of this folio.
The monks, when the world became more critical in their reading, gave a
graver turn to their narratives, and became more penurious of their
absurdities. The faithful Catholic contends that the line of tradition
has been preserved unbroken; notwithstanding that the originals were
lost in the general wreck of literature from the barbarians, or came
down in a most imperfect state. Baronius has given the lives of many
apocryphal saints; for instance, of a Saint _Xenoris_, whom he calls a
Martyr of Antioch; but it appears that Baronius having read this work in
Chrysostom, which signifies a couple or pair, he mistook it for the name
of a saint, and continued to give the most authentic biography of a
saint who never existed! The Catholics confess this sort of blunder is
not uncommon, but then it is only fools who laugh!
As a specimen of the happier inventions, one is given, embellished by
the diction of Gibbon the historian.
“Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted to
distinguish the memorable fable of the _Seven Sleepers_, whose imaginary
date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the
conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the emperor Decius persecuted
the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a
spacious cavern on the side of an adjacent mountain, where they were
doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should
be firmly secured by a pile of stones. They immediately fell into a deep
slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring the powers of
life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end
of that time the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the
mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some
rustic edifice. The light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the
Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake: after a slumber, as they
thought, of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and
resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to
the city to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if
we may still employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once
familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by
the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal
gate of Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded
the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current
coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on suspicion of a secret treasure,
was dragged before the judge. Their mutual inquiries produced the
amazing discovery that two centuries were almost elapsed since
Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a pagan tyrant.
The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, it
is said, the emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of
the Seven Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
and at the same instant peaceably expired.
“This popular tale Mahomet learned when he drove his camels to the fairs
of Syria; and he has introduced it, as a divine revelation, into the
Koran.” The same story has been adopted and adorned, by the natives from
Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion.
These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a saint’s
filthiness. St. Ignatius delighted, say they, to appear abroad with old
dirty shoes; he never used a comb, but suffered his hair to run into
clots, and religiously abstained from paring his nails. One saint
attained to such a pitch of piety as to have near three hundred patches
on his breeches; which, after his death, were exhibited in public as a
stimulus to imitate such a _holy life_. St. Francis discovered, by
certain experience, that the devil was frightened away by similar kinds
of _unmentionables_; but was animated by clean clothing to tempt and
seduce the wearers; and one of their heroes declares that the purest
souls are in the dirtiest bodies. On this subject a story is told by
them which may not be very agreeable to fastidious delicacy. Brother
Juniper was a gentleman perfectly pious in this principle; indeed so
great was his merit in this species of mortification, that a brother
declared he could always nose Brother Juniper when within a mile of the
monastery, provided he was at the due point. Once, when the blessed
Juniper, for he was no saint, was a guest, his host, proud of the honour
of entertaining so pious a personage, the intimate friend of St.
Francis, provided an excellent bed and the finest sheets. Brother
abhorred such luxury; and this too evidently appeared after his sudden
departure in the morning, unknown to his kind host. The great Juniper
did this, says his biographer, (having told us what he did) not so much
from his habitual inclinations for which he was so justly celebrated, as
from his excessive piety, and as much as he could to mortify worldly
pride, and to shew how a true saint despised clean sheets.
Among other grotesque miracles we find, in the life of St. Francis, that
he preached a sermon in a desert, but he soon collected an immense
audience. The birds shrilly warbled to every sentence, and stretched out
their necks, opened their beaks, and when he finished, dispersed with a
holy rapture into four companies, to report his sermon to all the birds
of the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during
the absence of the Virgin Mary, and fastened on his head. He grew so
companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to
twitter, he hushed them, by desiring them not to tittle tattle of his
sister the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign manual of
the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the
wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint,
followed him through towns, and became half a Christian. This same St.
Francis had such a detestation of the good things of this world, that he
would never suffer his followers to touch money. A friar having placed
some money in a window collected at the altar, he observed him to take
it in his mouth and throw it on the dung of an ass! St. Phillip Nerius
was such an admirer _of poverty_ that he frequently prayed God would
bring him to that state as to stand in need of a penny, and find none
that would give him one! But St. Macaire was so shocked at having
_killed a louse_ that he endured seven years of penitence among the
thorns and briars of a forest.
The following miraculous incident is given respecting two pious maidens.
The night of the Nativity of Christ, after the first mass, they both
retired into a solitary spot of their nunnery till the second mass was
rung. One asked the other, “why do you want two cushions, when I have
only one?” The other replied, “I would place it between us, for the
child Jesus; as the Evangelist says, “Where there are two or three
persons assembled I am in the midst of them.”—This being done, they sat
down, feeling a most lively pleasure at their fancy; and there they
remained from the nativity of Christ to that of John the Baptist; but
this great interval of time passed with these saintly maidens, as two
hours would appear to others. The abbess and her nuns were alarmed at
their absence, for no one could give any account of them. On the eve of
St. John, a cowherd passing by them, beheld a beautiful child seated on
a cushion between this pair of run-away nuns. He hastened to the abbess
with news of this stray sheep, who saw this lovely child playfully
seated between these nymphs, who, with blushing countenances, enquired
if the second bell had already rung? Both parties were equally
astonished to find our young devotees had been there since the birth of
Christ to that of John the Baptist. The abbess inquired after the child
who sat between them: they solemnly declared they saw no child between
them, and persisted in their story.”
“Such,” observes a late writer on this subject, “is one of the miracles
of the ‘Golden Legend,’ which a wicked wit might comment on, and see
nothing extraordinary in the whole story. The two nuns might be missing
between the nativities, and be found at last with a child seated between
them. They might not choose to account either for their absence or their
child: the only touch of miracle is, that they asseverated they saw _no
child_, that I confess is a _little (child)_ too much.
Ribadeneira’s Lives of the Saints exhibit more of the legendary spirit
than Alban Butler’s work on the same subject, (which, by the bye, is the
most sensible history of these legends;) for wanting judgment and not
faith, the former is more voluminous in his details, and more ridiculous
in his narratives.
Alban Butler affirms that St. Genevieve, the patron of Paris, was born
in 422, at Nanterre, four miles from Paris, near the present Calvary
there, and that she died a virgin on this day in 512, and was buried in
545, near the steps of the high altar, in a magnificent church,
dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, began by Clovis, where he also was
interred. Her relics were afterwards taken up and put into a costly
shrine about 630. Of course they worked miracles. Her shrine of gold and
silver, covered with precious stones, the presents of kings and queens,
and with a cluster of diamonds on the top, presented by the intriguing
Mary de Medicis, is, on calamitous occasions, carried about Paris in
procession, accompanied by shrines equally miraculous, and by the canons
of St. Genevieve walking barefoot.
The _miracles_ of St. Genevieve, as related in the Golden Legend, were
equally numerous and equally credible. It relates that when she was a
child, St. Germaine said to her mother, “Know ye for certain that on the
day of Genevieve’s nativity the angels sung with joy and gladness,” and
looking on the ground he saw a penny signed with the cross, which came
there by the will of God; he took it up, and gave it to Genevieve,
requiring her to bear in mind that she was the spouse of Christ. She
promised him accordingly, and often went to the minister, that she might
be worthy of her espousals. “Then,” says the Legend, “the mother was
angry, and smote her on the cheek—God avenged the child, so that the
mother became blind,” and so remained for one and twenty months, when
Genevieve fetched her some holy water, signed her with the sign of the
cross, washed her eyes, and she recovered her sight. It further relates,
that by the Holy Ghost she showed many people their secret thoughts, and
that from fifteen years to fifty, she fasted every day except Sunday and
Thursday, when she ate beans, and barley bread of three weeks old.
Desiring to build a church, and dedicate it to St. Denis and other
martyrs, she required materials of the priests for that purpose. “Dame,”
answered the priests, “we would; but we can get no chalk nor lime.” She
desired them to go to the bridge of Paris, and bring what they found
there. They did so till two swineherds came by, one of whom said to the
other, ‘I went yesterday after one of my sows and found a bed of lime;’
the other replied that he had also found one under the root of a tree
that the wind had blown down. St. Genevieve’s priests of course inquired
where these discoveries were made, and bearing the tidings to Genevieve,
the church of St. Denis was began. During its progress the workmen
wanted drink, whereupon Genevieve called for a vessel, prayed over it,
signed it with the cross, and the vessel was immediately filled; “so,”
says the Legend, “the workmen drank their belly full,” and the vessel
continued to be supplied in the same way with “drink” for the workmen
till the church was finished. At another time a woman stole St.
Genevieve’s shoes, but as soon as she got home lost her sight for the
theft, and remained blind, till, having restored the shoes, St.
Genevieve restored the woman’s sight. Desiring the liberation of certain
prisoners condemned to death at Paris, she went thither and found the
city gates were shut against her, but they opened without any other key
than her own presence. She prayed over twelve men in that city possessed
with devils, till the men were suspended in the air, and the devils were
expelled. A child of four years old fell into a pit, and was killed; St.
Genevieve only covered her with her mantle and prayed over her, and the
child came to life, and was baptised at Easter. On a voyage to Spain she
arrived at a port “where, as of custom, ships were wont to perish.” Her
own vessel was likely to strike on a tree in the water, which seems to
have caused the wrecks; she commanded the tree to be cut down, and began
to pray; when lo, just as the tree began to fall, “two wild heads, grey
and horrible, issued thereout, which stank so sore, that the people
there were envenomed by the space of two hours, and never after perished
ship there; thanks be to God and this holy saint.”
At Meaux, a master not forgiving his servant his faults, though St.
Genevieve prayed him, she prayed against him. He was immediately seized
with a hot ague: “on the morrow he came to the holy virgin, running with
open mouth like a German bear, his tongue hanging out like a boar, and
requiring pardon.” She then blessed him, the fever left him, and the
servant was pardoned. A girl going out with a bottle, St. Genevieve
called to her, and asked what she carried: she answered oil, which she
had bought; but St. Genevieve seeing the devil sitting on the bottle,
blew upon it, and the bottle broke, but the saint blessed the oil, and
caused her to bear it home safely notwithstanding. The Golden Legend
says, that the people who saw this, marvelled that the saint could see
the devil, and were greatly edified.
It was to be expected that a saint of such miraculous powers in her
lifetime should possess them after her death, and accordingly the
reputation of her relics is very high.
Several stories of St. Genevieve’s miraculous faculties, represent them
as very convenient in vexatious cases of ordinary occurrence; one of
these will serve as a specimen. On a dark wet night she was going to
church with her maidens, with a candle borne before her, which the wind
and rain put out; the saint merely called for the candle, and as soon as
she took it in her hand it was lighted again, “without any fire of this
world.”