“Within twenty-five years after the death of Mohammed, under Ali, the
fourth Khalif, the patronage of learning had become a settled principle
of the Mohammedan system. Some of the maxims current show how much
literature was esteemed.”
“The ink of the doctor is equally valuable with the blood of the martyr.
“Paradise is as much for him who has rightly used the pen, as for him
who has fallen by the sword.”
_The Best Service_
When General R. B. Hayes was nominated by the Republican party for the
Presidency, he made use, in his letter of acceptance, of the expression,
“He serves his party best who serves his country best.” A clue to this
phrase, which was frequently repeated afterwards, will be found in
Pope’s translation of the tenth book of Homer’s Iliad, where Nestor goes
through the camp to wake up the captains, and arousing Diomed says,—
“Each single Greek, in his conclusive strife,
Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life.
Yet if my years thy kind regard engage,
Employ thy youth as I employ my age;
Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest;
He serves me most who serves his country best.”
The similarity of the last line to the celebrated expression used by
President Hayes is striking. It is probable he was at some period of his
life a close reader of the Iliad, and that this expression found a
lodgement in his mind, to crop out in a slightly modified form after
many years.
_Mark Twain Accused of Plagiary_
Mark Twain having dedicated a recent book of his “to Mr. Smith wherever
he is found,” will, doubtless, be interested to learn that the gentleman
in question is to be discovered in the current London Post Office
Directory alone to the very considerable extent of sixteen and a half
columns. But will Mr. Twain be surprised to hear that the notion of this
Smith dedication of his is not a new one? Surely he must be aware that
an earlier American humorist, Artemus Ward, prefaced one of his volumes
with a similar inscription, and gave it additional point, too, by adding
a sincere hope that every one of his “dedicatees” would purchase a copy
of the book. So that, apparently, and not by any means for the first
time, a stolen idea has been spoiled in the stealing.
_The Bill of Fare_
A German gastronomical publication gives the following account of the
origin of the menu: At the meeting of Electors in Regensburg in the year
1489, Elector Henry of Braunschweig attracted general notice at a state
dinner. He had a long paper before him to which he referred every time
before he ordered a dish. The Earl of Montfort, who sat near him, asked
him what he was reading. The Elector silently handed the paper to his
interrogator. It contained a list of the viands prepared for the
occasion, which the Elector had ordered the cook to write out for him.
The idea of having such a list so pleased the illustrious assembly that
they introduced it each in his own household, and since that time the
fashion of having a menu has spread all over the civilized world.
_Ancestry_
On one occasion Mr. John Bright said, in the course of a speech, “The
noble lord comes of a race distinguished, I am told, as having come over
with the Conqueror. I never heard that any of them have since been
distinguished for anything else.” This sentiment, though probably Mr.
Bright knew it not, found epigrammatic expression in France more than a
century ago, in a distich composed when A. Courtenay, in compliment to
his birth, was elected a member of the Academy:
“Le Prince de Courtenay est de l’Académie,
Quel ouvrage a-t-il fait? Sa généalogie.”
The phrase, “I am my own ancestor,” is traced to Andoche Junot. When
Junot, a soldier who had risen from the ranks, was created Duke of
Abrantes, a French nobleman of the old régime sneeringly asked him what
was his ancestry. Junot replied, “Ah, ma foi, je n’en sais rien; moi je
suis mon ancêtre.” (Faith, I know nothing about it; I am my own
ancestor.) The Emperor Tiberius, however, thus described Curtius Rufus:
“He seems to be a man sprung from himself.” A similar reply is
attributed to Napoleon, as he is said to have told his prospective
father-in-law, the emperor of Austria, when the latter tried to trace
the Bonaparte lineage to some petty prince: “Sire, I am my own Rudolph
of Hapsburg.” (Rudolph was the founder of the Hapsburg family.)
_Cinderella_
The story of Cinderella is not the invention of some imaginative genius,
but is founded on fact. According to Strabo, the story is as follows:
One day a lady named Rhodopis was bathing in the Nile, and the wind
carried one of her sandals and laid it at the feet of the king of Egypt,
who was holding a court of justice in the open air not far away. His
curiosity was excited by the singularity of the event and the elegance
of the sandal, and he offered a reward for the discovery of the owner.
Rhodopis claimed it, and it was found to fit her exactly. She was very
beautiful, and the king married her. She lived two thousand years before
the Christian era, and is remembered in history as the “Rosy-cheeked
Queen” of Egypt.
_Crossing the Bar_
Did Tennyson find the suggestion for one of his latest poems, “Crossing
the Bar,” in the letter written by the Rev. Donald Cargill in 1680 to a
friend who was under sentence of death? Thus it runs: “Farewell, dearest
friend, never to see one another any more, till at the right hand of
Christ. Fear not, and the God of mercies grant a full gale and a fair
entry into His kingdom, that may carry you sweetly and swiftly over the
bar, that you find not the rub of death.”
_Fourth Estate_
Carlyle, in the fifth lecture on “Heroes and Hero Worship,” said, “Burke
said there were three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters’
gallery yonder there sat a fourth estate more important far than they
all.” This was in 1839 or 1840.
_Ne Sutor Ultra Crepidam_
John Randolph had had a discussion with a man named Sheffey, who was one
of his colleagues, and who had been a shoemaker in early life. Sheffey
had made a speech which excited Randolph’s jealousy, and Randolph, in
replying to him, said that Sheffey was out of his sphere, and by way of
illustration had told the story of the sculptor Phidias. “This
sculptor,” said Randolph, “had made a noted figure, and having placed it
on the sidewalk, he secured a hiding-place near by, where, unobserved,
he might hear the criticisms of those who passed upon his statue. Among
those who examined the marble was a shoemaker, and this man criticised
the sandals and muttered over to himself as to where they were wrong.
After he had gone away, Phidias came forth and examined the points that
the shoemaker had objected to, and found that his criticism was correct.
He removed the statue to his studio and remedied the defects. The next
day Phidias again placed it upon the street and the shoemaker again
stopped before it. He saw at once that the defects he had noticed had
been remedied, and he now began to criticise very foolishly other points
about the statue. Phidias listened to him for a time, and then came
forth with a Latin phrase which means ‘Let the shoemaker stick to his
last.’ And so,” concluded Randolph, “I say in regard to my colleague.”
_Chestnut_
The slang term “chestnut,” as applied to ancient jokes or moss-grown
anecdotes, though credited to a Philadelphia actor, may be traced to a
remote period. Ovid, in his “Art of Love,” says, “Let your boy take to
your mistress grapes, or what Amaryllis so delighted in; but at the
present time she is fond of chestnuts no longer.” This is plainly a
reference to a line in the Second Eclogue, in which Virgil tells how
chestnuts pleased Amaryllis. The idea obviously was that for weariness
and satiety the chestnut had lost its allurement.
_Milton’s Indebtedness_
A reverend gentleman named Edmunson is endeavoring to rob the author of
“Paradise Lost” of all the honor which belongs to originality of
conception. He has published a work to prove that Milton was largely
indebted in the composition of his great poem to various poems of a
Dutch rhymester of the same period, one Joost Van den Vondel, and that
Samson Agonistes was inspired by a drama by Vondel on the same subject.
_An Expressive Phrase_
Mr. Lincoln has often been credited with the expressive phrase, “Of the
people, by the people, for the people.” It was not original with him,
however; Theodore Parker first used it, and often used it during the
last decade of his life. A lady who was long a member of Mr. Parker’s
household, and who assisted him in his intellectual work, says that the
idea did not spring at once to his mind in its perfect conciseness; he
had expressed it again and again with gradually lessening diffuseness
before he gave the address to the Anti-Slavery Society, May 13, 1854,
where it appears thus: “Of all the people, by all the people, and for
all the people,” as published in Additional Speeches, Vol. II., page 25.
“But that,” she adds, “was not quite pointed enough for the weapon he
needed to use so often in criticising the national action, to pierce and
penetrate the mind of hearer and reader with the just idea of democracy,
securing it there by much iteration; and I can distinctly recall his
joyful look when he afterwards read it to me in his library, condensed
into this gem: ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people.’”
_Overstrained Politeness_
Maunsell B. Field, in his “Memories,” relates that General Winfield
Scott told him that during the last war with Great Britain (1812–14),
before an action began between the two armies, it was customary for the
respective commanders to ride forward, accompanied by their staffs, and
formally salute each other. Each then returned to his own lines, and the
battle opened.
This serves as a reminder of the old story of Fournier (_L’Esprit dans
l’histoire_): “Lord Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745, called out,
‘Gentlemen of the French Guard, fire first.’ To which the Comte
d’Auteroches replied, ‘Sir, we never fire first; please to fire
yourselves.’”
_The Next to Godliness_
The proverb “Cleanliness is next to godliness” first made its appearance
in “Beraitha” as the last Mishna of Sota, chapter ix. _Mishna_
(instruction) is a word applied by the Jews to the oral law, which is
divided into six parts. The Jewish Talmud is a commentary on the Mishna.
The references to that are: Talmud Jerus, Skakalim, chapter iii., page
6; Talmud babl. Ab. Sarah, page 20 b; Jalket, sh. Isaiah No. 263; and
Alfassi ab; Sarah, ibid. loc. Here it reads as follows: “Phinehas ben
Yair says, The doctrines of religion are resolved into (or are next to)
carefulness; carefulness into vigorousness; vigorousness into
guiltlessness; guiltlessness into abstemiousness; abstemiousness into
cleanliness; cleanliness into godliness (equal to holiness),” etc., etc.
No translation can render it exactly; it is literally “cleanliness next
to (or akin to) godliness;” and this saying is older than the gospels.
_Punchinello_
The Punch and Judy idea is over two thousand years old. The Celestial
Emperor Kao Tsu (206 B.C.) was shut up in the City of Peh-têng by an
army of barbarous Huns. “With his Majesty was a statesman, Ch’ ên P’ing,
who, happening to know that the wife of the besieging chieftain was a
very jealous woman, devised a scheme. He caused the portrait of a very
beautiful girl to be forwarded to her, with a message that if her
husband would permit the emperor to go forth unharmed, the young lady
should become his property. The chieftain’s wife never mentioned the
portrait to her husband, but at once began to persuade him to raise the
siege, which, in fact, he would have done forthwith had he not been
privately informed of the picture and warned at the same time that the
whole affair was simply a ruse. Thereupon he sent to say that it would
be necessary for him first of all to have a glimpse of this beauty in
the flesh; and later on he repaired by agreement to the foot of the city
wall, where he beheld the young lady moving about and surrounded by a
number of attendants. His suspicions being thus allayed, he gave orders
to open a passage through his lines to the Emperor Kao Tsu and suite,
who promptly made the best of their way out. At the same time the Hun
chieftain entered the city and proceeded to the spot on the wall where
the young lady was awaiting him, still surrounded by her handmaids; but
on arriving there he found that the beauty and her attendants were
simply a set of wooden puppets which had been dressed up for the
occasion and were worked by a concealed arrangement of springs.
_Workmen’s Strikes_
Mrs. Oliphant, in “The Makers of Florence,” relates that in the course
of the construction of the massive dome of the Duomo, of the many
difficulties with which Brunelleschi had to contend, “the greatest was a
strike of his workmen, of whom, however, there being no trades’ unions
in those days, the imperious _maestro_ made short work.”
_The Standing Egg_
The well-known trick of Columbus in making an egg stand on end during a
dispute after his return from his first voyage was anticipated by
Brunelleschi, the architect of the magnificent dome of the Duomo in
Florence. During the heated controversy which preceded his selection
over his competitors, “he proposed,” according to Vasari’s amusing
account, “to all the masters, foreigners, and compatriots, that he who
could make an egg stand upright on a piece of smooth marble should be
appointed to build the cupola, since in doing that his genius would be
made manifest. They took an egg accordingly, and all those masters did
their best to make it stand upright, but none discovered the method of
doing so. Wherefore Filipo (Brunelleschi), being told that he might make
it stand himself, took it daintily into his hand, gave the end of it a
blow on the plane of the marble, and made it stand upright. Beholding
this the artists loudly protested, exclaiming that they could all have
done the same, but Filipo replied, laughingly, that they might also know
how to construct the cupola if they had seen the model and design.”
This was in the year 1420, fifteen years before Columbus was born.
_Setting up to Knock Down_
The great English statesman, John Bright, once playfully suggested that
the appointment of a certain gentleman to the Chief Secretaryship of
Ireland was intended as a punishment to that country for some of its
offences. What was thus said half in jest a sacred writer states here in
all seriousness: “That such a prince as Zedekiah was raised to the
throne was itself a token of divine displeasure, for his character was
such as to hasten the final catastrophe,”—that which came to pass was
“through the anger of the Lord.”
_The Guilds of London_
With regard to the origin of the London guilds there are two opposing
parties, one of which holds that these organizations had their origin in
certain mutual benefit associations of the Roman Empire, while the other
insists on their spontaneous generation from the needs of Teutonic
society in the Middle Ages. One thing is certain, without the culture of
the Roman Empire there would have been no Teutonic nor Celtic nor
Iberian civilization in modern Europe, and chivalry, knighthood, and the
guild system, as well as every other step toward modern refinement, owe
their existence in a near or remote degree to what preceded them, to the
civic life that descended in unbroken continuity from Babylon to Treves.
It would have been a remarkable thing if mediæval Europe had not
retained a reminiscence more or less distinct of the well-drilled,
well-mounted, well-armed, imperturbable Romans, the men “under
authority,” scattered in villages and outposts, or collected in
garrisons, and had not tried to create defenders of the same kind.
Equally strange would it be if such organizations as the Collegia
Opificum pervaded the urban life of the imperial dominions without
leaving an impression on the people. The similarity of the guilds to
their Roman prototypes is very remarkable. The objects of both were
common worship, social intercourse, and mutual protection. It is
confessed that modern historians have exaggerated the breach in
continuity between the Roman and the barbarian world; it is even
acknowledged that in one or two Gallic towns certain artisan
corporations may have existed without interruption from the fifth to the
twelfth century; and that Roman regulations may have served as models
for the organization of serfs, skilled laborers on the lands of monks
and nobles. But it must be pointed out on the other hand that until the
twelfth century the demand for skilled labor in Europe was comparatively
meagre and that the stream of ancient tradition was really growing
weaker with every decade. What can be insisted on is simply a certain
economy of intellectual effort, for the sake of a human animal, the
mediæval Celt, Saxon, Norseman, Hun, etc., with whom intellect does not
seem to have been a strong point. His invention may not have been put to
the test in the matter of guilds. What he needed had happily survived
his own clumsy race as well as the indifference of Romans and
Provincials. Even in England one can ascend much beyond the twelfth
century by the discovery of a rare notice now and then of a Knights’
Guild or a Frith Guild in Saxon London.
_Rip Van Winkle_
The classical scholar will regard Rip Van Winkle as a resuscitation of
Epimenides, who lived in the Island of Crete six centuries before the
Christian era. The story is, that going by his father’s order in search
of a sheep, he laid himself down in a cave, where he fell asleep, and
slept for fifty years. He then reappeared among the people, with long
hair and a flowing beard. But while poor Rip, after his twenty years’
slumber, awoke to find himself the butt of his village, Epimenides had
absorbed a wonderful degree of knowledge.
The German legend on which Washington Irving’s story is founded is given
by Otmar in his “Volks-Sagen,” entitled “Der Ziegenhirt.” Peter Klaus, a
goatherd of Sittendorf, is the hero of the tale, the scene of which is
laid on the Kyffhäuser.
_Menteith_
Benedict Arnold, the traitor whose betrayal of trust and attempt to
sacrifice his country will, through all time, be regarded as the highest
height and the lowest depth of infamy, had a fitting prototype in Sir
John Menteith, who betrayed the great defender of Scotch liberty, Sir
William Wallace, into the hands of the English invaders, and, with the
deliverance of his person, the surrender of the liberty of his country,
leaving a name and memory loaded with disgrace. Sir Walter Scott, in his
“Tales of a Grandfather,” says,—
“The King of England, Edward I., possessed so many means of raising
soldiers, that he sent army after army into the poor, oppressed country
of Scotland, and obliged all its nobles and great men, one after
another, to submit themselves to his yoke. Sir William Wallace alone, or
with a very small band of followers, refused either to acknowledge the
usurper Edward, or to lay down his arms. He continued to maintain
himself among the woods and mountains of his native country for no less
than seven years after his defeat at Falkirk, and for more than one year
after all the other defenders of Scottish liberty had laid down their
arms. Many proclamations were sent out against him by the English, and a
great reward was set upon his head; for Edward did not think he could
have any secure possession of his usurped kingdom of Scotland while
Wallace lived. At length he was taken prisoner, and shame it is to say,
a Scotsman, called Sir John Menteith, was the person by whom he was
seized and delivered to the English. It is generally said that he was
made prisoner at Robroyston, near Glasgow, and the tradition of the
country is that the signal for rushing upon him and taking him unawares,
was that one of his pretended friends, who was to betray him, should
turn a loaf which was placed on the table, with its bottom or flat side
uppermost. And in after times it was reckoned ill-breeding to turn a
loaf in that manner if there was a person named Menteith in company;
since it was as much as to remind him that his namesake had betrayed Sir
William Wallace, the champion of Scotland.
_The Christmas-Tree_
The Christmas-tree came in with the movements of the transition from the
mediæval to the modern period. Previous to that epoch, the fir or
spruce-tree, with its pendant decorations, its toys and baubles, its
stars and crosses, its spangles and tinselry, its glittering emblems,
and the wax candles lighting its branches were unknown. For a long time
it found its highest expression in the tannenbaum of Germany, and German
antiquaries claim that it was a relic of the Saturnalia, and was
implanted in Teutonic soil by the conquering Legions of Drusus, about
the commencement of the Christian era. The myth which connects it with
St. Winfred goes forward to the eighth century. While the famous
missionary was hewing down the sacred oak that had been the object of
idolatrous worship, a tornado blasted it. But just behind it, unharmed
by the whirlwind, stood a young fir tree pointing a green spire to the
stars. Winfred turned to his followers, and said,—
“This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy-tree
to-night. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of it. It
is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are always green. See how
it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the
Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild woods, but in your own
homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and
acts of kindness.”
It is noteworthy that the first description of a Christmas-tree in
German literature is to be found in “The Nut-Cracker” of Hoffman, whose
strange stories remind us of our own Edgar Poe. But whatsoever the
German pedigree, the tree had a Roman prototype, as we learn from the
Georgics of Virgil. It was customary to suspend from the branches of
trees in the vineyards _oscilla_ or _sigilla_, which were little
figures, or faces, or heads of Bacchus, made of earthenware or marble
(some of which are preserved in the British Museum), to be turned in
every direction by the wind. Whichsoever way they looked when blown by
the air currents, they were supposed to make the vines in that quarter
fruitful. The oscilla were frequently given as toys to children. Virgil
says of the Roman youth—to use Dryden’s translation,—
“In jolly hymns they praise the god of wine,
Whose earthen images adorn the pine,
And there are hung on high, in honor of the vine,” etc.
Antiquarians who are not satisfied to let the origin rest with this
feature of the sixth and seventh days of the Saturnalia have undertaken
to trace the tree to the ancient Egyptians, and also to the Buddhists.
_Shallows and Deeps_
“The shallows murmur while the deeps are dumb” seems to be an adaptation
from Quintus Curtius Rufus: “Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono
labuntur.” The line is to be found in “The Silent Lover,” usually
attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, sometimes entitled “Sir Walter Raleigh
to Queen Elizabeth”:
“Passions are likened best to flouds and streames;
The shallow murmur, but the deepe are dumbe:
Soe, when affections yield discourse, it seemes
The bottome is but shallowe whence they come.
They that are riche in wordes, in wordes discover
That they are poore in that which makes a lover.”