Autumnal Tints--Solomon and the Queen of Sheba--Sortes
Sacræ--Sortes Virgilianæ--Charles the First and Lord
Falkland--Virgilius the Magician--Thomas of Ercildoune.
With occasional gales of wind and blustering showers [October 1868],
that, from their chilliness and snellness, you suspect to be sleet,
although you don't like as yet exactly to say so--meteorological
phenomena, however, in no way strange or unusual on the back of the
autumnal equinox--the weather with us here continues delightfully
bright and breezy, and the country looks beautiful. Field and
upland are still as freshly green as at midsummer, while the deep,
rich russet hues and golden tints of the declining year, gleaming
in the fitful sunlight, and intermingling their glories with the
still beautifully fresh and unspotted foliage of our hardier trees
and shrubs; with the ripe, ruddy bloom of the heather empurpling the
moorland and the hill, and a perfect sea of "brackens brown" mantling
the mountain side, and fringing, in loving companionship with the
birch, the alder, and the hazel, the torrent's brink, as it leaps
in foam from rock to rock and dashes downwards with its wild music
to the sea,--all this, with a thousand indescribable accessories,
scarcely perceptible indeed in the general effect, but all bearing
their fitting part in the delightful whole, presents at this season,
and never more markedly than this year, a scene that you never tire
of gazing at, and declaring again and again, and with all your heart,
to be "beautiful exceedingly." As you gaze on such a scene as this,
you feel that no painter could paint it; that there is a something
in it all too subtile and spiritual to be transferred to canvas by
any art whatever. An imitation, indeed, of all that is palpable and
tangible about it you may get, and it may be very beautiful perhaps,
and a triumph of art in a way; but, even as you gaze in admiration,
ready to grant the artist all the praise that is his due, are you
not apt, remembering the scene as nature has it, to
"Start, for soul is wanting there?"
But we must not be misunderstood. Painters and painting we love,
and have always loved, and should be sorry, indeed, to be considered
as in any way dead or indifferent to the power and beauty of the
art. Painting, after all, however, and especially landscape painting,
is but an imitative art, and the longer we live, and the more we are
brought face to face with nature, the more shall we feel that there is
a charm, an attractiveness, and a loveliness about her all her own--a
something that you feel but cannot describe, that the artist as he
gazes feels too, and strives to grasp and instil into his picture,
but cannot charm into interminglement with his colours, "charm he
never so wisely." Viewed æsthetically, nature in sooth consists not of
matter only, but of matter and spirit, and therein is the secret of her
surpassing power over us. You may subtly imitate and reproduce exact
representations of her more prominent features and general outlines,
and the painter, according as he is more or less gifted with the
poetic mens divina, may infuse a moral meaning into his work, and a
subtile beauty entirely independent of the mere manipulation of his
subject--be it landscape, seascape, or cloudscape--and his work may
impart instruction as well as pleasure and delight; but, granting
all this, there shall still be something awanting even in the finest
pictures, that something which we have ventured to call spirit--the
spirit that pervades and permeates nature in all her works, that is
her life, that may be "spiritually discerned" in her, but cannot be
transferred to canvas.
In the collection of Jewish traditions known as the Talmud there
is a very pretty story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, that will
serve to illustrate our meaning better than the longest dissertation
could be. It is to the following effect:--Attracted by his wealth, and
wisdom, and power--the fame whereof had gone forth into all lands--the
Queen of Sheba, the Beautiful, paid a visit to Solomon, the Wise,
at his own court, that she might there admire the splendour of his
throne and be instructed of his wisdom. Charmed with the courtesy and
gallantry of the accomplished King, delighted with the magnificence
and splendour of his court, and amazed at his surpassing wisdom,
which, indeed, exceeded all that she had heard reported of it, the
Queen still thought that Solomon could be outwitted, and she resolved
to have the glory of puzzling and outwitting one so wise. To this
end she one day presented herself before the King, bearing in one of
her hands a wreath of natural flowers, the most beautiful she could
gather, and in the other a similar wreath of artificial flowers,
the most beautiful and like unto natural flowers that the cunning
of herself and her handmaidens could fashion. Of the two wreaths
the hues were of the brightest, and the flowers of the one wreath
were as if they had been pulled off the same stalks that bore the
flowers of the other. "Tell me now, O King," said the Queen as she
stood at some distance from the throne whereon the monarch sate,
"Tell me now, O King, which of these wreaths I hold in my hands is
fashioned of artificial flowers, for one of them is so fashioned;
and which of them of natural flowers, that grew from out the earth,
and imbibed their beauty and their brightness from the sun, for of
such of a truth is one of them formed?" And, lo, the King was perplexed
and sorely troubled, for he wist not what answer to make, seeing that
the two wreaths were as like one to another as twin sisters at their
mother's breast, or twin lilies on the same stalk. And the courtiers
of the King, and his princes, and his servants, were sorely grieved
that the sagacity of the King should be at fault, and his superhuman
wisdom at last fail. But, lo, the spirit of wisdom came upon the
King in his perplexity. Observing some bees clustering outside,
he ordered the window to be opened, and soon the bees came swarming
into the court, and after hovering for a moment about the one wreath,
they straightway left it and settled upon the other, which observing,
"That," said the King, "that, and not the other, is the wreath of
the flowers that grew from out the earth and in the sun, and were
not fashioned with hands." And the Queen was mightily surprised at
the exceeding wisdom of the King, and did obeisance unto Solomon,
laying the wreaths of flowers upon the steps of the ivory throne that
was overlaid with gold, and of which there was not the like made in
any kingdom. And the courtiers, and the princes, and the servants of
the King clapped their hands and cried, "O King! live for ever." If we
are wise and judge aright, we shall always, like the bees of Solomon,
be attracted by nature rather than by art, however beautiful. Our
doctrine was never, perhaps, so briefly and pithily enforced as by
the Macedonian conqueror on a certain occasion. A courtier one day
asked him to listen to him how well he could, whistling, imitate
the notes of the nightingale. Alexander declined the proffered
musical entertainment with the contemptuous remark, "I have heard
the nightingale herself." No wonder that the would-be melodist slunk
away abashed; and such be the fate of all mere echoers and imitators
when at any time they claim more than is their due, or would have us
appraise their pinchbeck at the value of sterling gold. There is an
amount of truth, and a hidden meaning and beauty, in Byron's lines,
that he was himself perhaps unconscious of in the ribald mood of the
moment, when, alluding to the statuary's art, he exclaimed--
"I've seen much finer women, ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal."
It is astonishing how difficult of thorough eradication are certain
superstitions, if once established amongst a people. Once let the
popular mind become inoculated with error in this shape, and although
times may change and the manners of the people may alter, though a
new tongue even shall have succeeded the language in which the error
was imbibed, and knowledge have spread and civilisation have steadily
progressed, yet there the superstition still lurks, frightened it
may be at the outward light, and, owl-like, ashamed to appear in
the brightness of the blessed sunshine of unclouded truth, but ever
ready, nevertheless, under favourable circumstances, to manifest
itself, and assert its sway over its votaries, like certain fabled
mediæval philters and potions that when administered are said to have
lurked for years and years in the human system, till, under certain
conditions, their subtle properties were called into active operation,
and the desired effect was produced. A short time ago we spent an
evening in the company of a gentleman from the south of Scotland, a
distinguished antiquary and archæologist, and of wonderful skill in
everything connected with the folk-lore of Scotland, whether of the
past or present. In the course of conversation, "over the walnuts and
the wine," our friend surprised us not a little by informing us that
even at this day, in certain parts of the south-western districts of
Scotland, the Sortes Sacræ are frequently resorted to by the people
when they are in doubt or perplexity about anything of sufficient
importance in their opinion to warrant their having recourse to this
ancient mode of divination. The Sortes Sacræ are founded upon the more
ancient Sortes Virgilianæ--Virgilian Lots, a method of divination which
had at least the merit of being extremely simple, and not necessarily
occupying much of the votary's time. What may be called the literary
oracle, as distinguished from vocal oracles, was consulted in this
wise: The operator having before him a copy of Virgil--the sortes were
generally confined to the Æneid--opened the volume ad aperturam libri,
anywhere, at random, when the first passage that accidentally struck
the eye was carefully read and pondered with as little reference as
possible to its immediate context, and a meaning extracted from it
which was supposed to indicate the issue of the event in hand, and
which was to be considered inevitable and irrevocable as the fates
had so decreed. A man with the knowledge thus obtained could not by
any precaution or change of conduct avert the impending doom, good or
evil; he could only put his house in order, and so arrange matters the
best way he could; that if evil came it might be borne with dignity
and patience; if good, that it might be enjoyed with moderation and
devout gratitude to the gods. It is said that at the outbreak of the
troubles that culminated in the Commonwealth, Charles I. and Lord
Falkland found themselves on a certain day in the Bodleian Library
at Oxford, when the latter jocularly proposed that they should inform
themselves of their future fortunes by means of the Sortes Virgiliæ;
and certainly, read by the light of after events, it must be confessed
that the passages stumbled upon seem singularly ominous of the fate
that overtook both. The passage read by the Martyr King was from the
fourth book of the Æneid, and is as follows:--
"At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis,
Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli,
Auxilium imploret, videatque, indigna suorum
Funera: nec, cum se sub leges pacis iniquæ
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur,
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena."
Which Dryden, if with rather too much amplification, still very
beautifully translates thus:--
"Yet let a race untamed and haughty foes
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose,
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men discouraged and himself expell'd:
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace.
First let him see his friends in battle slain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain;
And when at length the cruel wars shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace.
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command,
But fall untimely by some hostile hand,
And lie unburied on the barren sand."
Lord Falkland's eye fell on the following lines in the eleventh book:--
"Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti.
Cautius ut sævo velles te credere Marti!
Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et predulce decus primo certamine posset.
Primitiæ juvenis miseræ! bellique propinqui
Dura rudimenta! et nulli exaudita Deorum
Vota, precesque meæ!"
--which the same translator has rendered as follows:--
"O Pallas, thou hast failed thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would pursue;
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war;
O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come,
Hard elements of unauspicious war,
Vain vows to heaven and unavailing care."
How the most pious man of his age, and one of the best kings that
ever adorned a throne, suffered death at the hands of his rebellious
subjects is well known. Poor Lord Falkland--a young nobleman of the
most estimable character; a poet and man of letters, so fond of books
that he used to say that "he pitied unlearned gentlemen in a rainy
day"--fell gallantly fighting for the royal cause in the battle of
Newbury, before he had yet completed his thirty-fourth year. It is
curious to find the eminent poet Abraham Cowley, a good man too--of
whom at his death Charles II. was heard to say that "Mr. Cowley had
not left a better man behind in England,"--it is curious, we say, to
find him on a certain occasion seriously referring to the Virgilian
Lots, and, what is more, avowing his firm belief in them! During
the Commonwealth, Cowley was in Paris, where he acted as secretary
to the Earl of St. Albans (then Lord Jermyn), and had a good deal to
do with the negotiations that eventually led to the Restoration. In
one of his letters, speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation,
he says--seriously, observe, and in an official document--"The Scotch
treaty is the only thing now in which we are vitally concerned. I am
one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now abstain from believing
that an agreement will be made; all people upon the place incline
to that union. The Scotch will moderate something of the rigour of
their demands; the mutual necessity of an accord is visible, the king
is persuaded of it. And, to tell you the truth (which I take to be
an argument above all the rest), Virgil has told the same thing to
that purpose." He had evidently consulted the Virgilian Lots, and a
passage presenting itself that could somehow be twisted so as to point
to a favourable issue to the Scotch business in hand, he accepts the
oracle, and in all seriousness announces his belief in it! When we
find a man of refinement and culture and high moral character like
Cowley crediting such nonsense, can we much wonder at the lengths to
which fanaticism and superstition carried people in those unhappy
times? To understand why Virgil, of all the ancient poets, Roman
or Greek, was selected as the oracle in this mode of divination,
we must remember that the Mantuan bard had the credit amongst his
countrymen of having been a sorcerer or necromancer and prophet as
well as a poet, something like the British Merlin, or our own Thomas
the Rhymer and Michael Scott, only more famous, perhaps. "Would the
reader suppose, for example, that the theory of volcanic action is
all a myth, and that it is to the magic of Virgil, and to nothing
else, that the south of Italy is indebted for all the earthquakes and
subterranean convulsions that have afflicted it for centuries? Yet so
it is, if we are to credit all the stories of "Virgilius the Magician"
that were current during the Middle Ages. The celebrated Benedictine
monk, Bernard de Montfaucon, author of Antiquité Expliquée one of
the most learned and curious works in existence, repeats the story
as it was told and credited in the Dark Ages. The following is from
an old translation, quoted by Scott in his notes to the Lay of the
Last Minstrel, in illustration of the magical spells attributed to
the Ladye of Branksome Tower. Virgil it seems, among other things,
was famous for his gallantries. On one occasion he fell in love with
and carried away the daughter of a certain "Soldan," and the story
proceeds:--"Than he thoughte in his mynde how he myghte marye hyr, and
thoughte in his mynde to founde in the middes of the see a fayer towne,
with great landes belongynge to it; and so he did by his cunnynge,
and called it Napells (Naples). And the foundacyon of it was of egges,
and in that town of Napells he made a tower with iiii. corners, and in
the toppe he set an apell upon an yron yarde, and no man culde pull
away that apell without he brake it; and thoroughe that yren set he
a bolte, and in that bolte set he an egge, and he henge the apell by
the stauke upon a cheyne, and so hangeth it still. And when the egge
styrreth so should the town of Napells quake; and when the egge brake,
then shulde the town sinke. When he made an ende, he lette calls it
Napells." Thomas of "Ercildoune," and he of "Balivearie," and the two
Merlins,--for there were two of them, the Merlin of the Arthurian
legends, and Merdwynn Wylet, or Merlin the Wild, who seems to have
been a Scotchman, and whose grave is still pointed out beneath an aged
thorn-tree at Drumelzier in Tweeddale,--these were accounted great
magicians and "pretty fellows in their day;" but what were they to
Virgilius the earthquaker, who at least attained to such an enviable
state of independence, that he is represented as frequently playing
at pitch and toss with the "devyl," and cheating and outwitting that
crafty potentate as if he were the veriest greenhorn! The Sortes Sacræ
were just the Sortes Virgilianæ, with this difference, that in the
former case, instead of a copy of Virgil, the New Testament was used
in the process of divination. The oracle is consulted in this case,
according to our information, by the introduction at random of the
wards end of a key (some allusion probably to the Apostolic keys)
between the leaves of the closed volume, which is then opened at that
place, and from the first verse that arrests the eye the desired
knowledge is extracted. On inquiry, we find that this superstition
was still occasionally practised in the Highlands of Scotland some
fifty years ago, though we would fain hope and believe that it
is now unknown. It is curious that it should still be frequently
resorted to in the south-western districts. It seems to have been a
very general as well as a very ancient mode of divination. Hoffman,
in his Lexicon Universale, &c., informs us that it was practised by
the Jewish Rabbins with their sacred books, as well as by the Pagans
from very early times, and was common amongst the Christians of the
Middle Ages. We are informed by a gentleman, who spent many years
in the East, that the Mahometans frequently resort to this method of
divination, taking the Koran as their oracle.