been confirmed by the testimony of many persons, who have often
witnessed it. This is what the Secretary of the Maronite Patriarch wrote
to me in one of his letters, which I think it right to give in his own
words. _Cedri Libani quas plantavit Deus, ut Psalmist: loquitur, sitae
sunt in planitie quadam, aliquantulum infra altissimum Montis-Libani
cacumen, ubi tempore hyemali maxima nivium quantitas descendit,
tribusque & ultra, mensibus mordaciter dominatur. Cedri in altum
ascendunt extensis tamen ramis in gyrum solo parallelis, confioientibus
suo gyro fere umbellam solarem. Sed superveniente nive, quia
coacervaretur in magna quantitate eos desuper, neque possent pati tantum
pondus tanto tempore premens, sine certo fractionis discrimine, Natura,
rerum omnium provida mater, ipsis concessit, ut adveniente hyeme &
descendente nive, statim rami in altum assurgant, & secum invicem uniti
constituant quasi conum, ut melius sese ab adveniente hoste tueantur.
Natura enim ipsa verum est, virtutem quamlebet unitam simul reddi
fortiorem._
The Cedars of Lebanon, which, as the Psalmist says, God himself planted,
are situated in a little plain, somewhat below the loftiest summit of
mount Lebanon, where in the winter a great quantity of snow falls, and
continues for three months, or longer. The Cedars are high, but their
boughs spread out parallel with the ground into a circle, forming almost
a shield against the sun. But when the snow falls, which would be heaped
upon them in so great a quantity, that they could not endure such a
weight so long a time, without the certain danger of breaking, Nature,
the provident mother of all, has endued them with power, that when the
winter comes and the snow descends, their boughs immediately rise, and
uniting together form a cone, that they may be the better defended from
the coming Enemy. For in Nature itself it is true, that virtue as it is
united, becomes stronger.
[166] The Coffee plant is about the size of the orange tree, the flower
in colour, size, and smell, resembles the white jessamine, the berry is
first green, then red, in which ripe state it is gathered.
Olearius's description of Coffee is amusing. "They drink a certain black
water which they call Cahwa, made of a fruit brought out of Egypt, and
which is in colour like ordinary wheat, and in taste like Turkish wheat,
and is of the bigness of a little bean. They fry, or rather burn it in
an iron pan without any liquor, beat it to powder, and boyling it with
fair water, they make this drink thereof, which hath as it were the
taste of a burnt crust, and is not pleasant to the palate.
_Amb. Travels._
[167] It is well known how much the Orientalists are addicted to this
pretended science. There is a curious instance of public folly in Sir
John Chardin's travels.
"Sephie-Mirza was born in the year of the _Egire_ 1057. For the
superstition of the Persians will not let us know the month or the day.
Their addiction to Astrology is such that they carefully conceal the
moments of their Princes birth, to prevent the casting their nativities,
where they might meet perhaps with something which they should be
unwilling to know."
At the coronation of this Prince two Astrologers were to be present,
with an Astrolabe in their hands, to take the fortunate hour, as they
term it, and observe the lucky moments that a happy constellation should
point out for proceedings of that importance.
Sephie-Mirza having by debauchery materially injured his health, the
Chief Physician was greatly alarmed, "in regard his life depended upon
the King's, or if his life were spared yet he was sure to lose his
estate and his liberty, as happens to all those who attend the Asiatic
Sovereigns, when they die under their care. The Queen Mother too accused
him of treason or ignorance, believing that since he was her Son's
Physician he was obliged to cure him. This made the Physician at his
wits end, so that all his receipts failing him, he bethought himself of
one that was peculiarly his own invention, and which few physicians
would ever have found out, as not being to be met with neither in Galen
nor Hippocrates. What does he then do, but out of an extraordinary fetch
of his wit, he begins to lay the fault upon the stars and the King's
Astrologers, crying out that they were altogether in the wrong, that if
the King lay in a languishing condition and could not recover his health
it was because they had failed to observe the happy hour, or the Aspect
of a fortunate constellation at the time of his coronation." The
stratagem succeeded, the King was recrowned and by the new name of
Solyman!
_Chardin._
[168] We have now to refute their errour who are persuaded that Brazen
Heads made under certain constellations may give answers, and be as it
were guides and counsellors, upon all occasions, to those that had them
in their possession. Among these is one Yepes who affirms that Henry de
Villeine made such a one at Madrid, broken to pieces afterwards by order
of John 2. King of Castile. The same thing is affirmed by Bartholomew
Sibillus, and the Author of the _Image of the World_, of Virgil; by
William of Malmsbury of Sylvester; by John Gower of Robert of Lincoln;
by the common people of England of Roger Bacon; and by Tostatus Bishop
of Avilla, George of Venice, Delrio, Sibillus, Raguseus, Delancre and
others, too many to mention, of Albertus Magnus; who as the most expert,
had made an entire man of the same metal, and had spent thirty years
without any interruption in forming him under several aspects and
constellations. For example, he formed the eyes, according to the said
Tostatus in his commentaries upon Exodus, when the Sun was in a sign of
the Zodiac correspondent to that part, casting them out of divers metals
mixt together and mark'd with the characters of the same signs and
planets, and their several and necessary aspects. The same method he
observed in the head, neck, shoulders, thighs, and legs, all which were
fashioned at several times, and being put and fastened together in the
form of a man, had the faculty to reveal to the said Albertus the
solutions of all his principal difficulties. To which they add (that
nothing be lost of the story of the statue) that it was battered to
pieces by St. Thomas, meerely because he could not endure its excesse of
prating.
But to give a more rational account of this Androides of Albertus, as
also of all these miraculous heads, I conceive the original of this
fable may well be deduced from the Teraph of the Hebrews, by which as
Mr. Selden affirms, many are of opinion, that we must understand what is
said in Genesis concerning Laban's Gods, and in the first book of Kings
concerning the image which Michol put into the bed in David's place. For
R. Eleazar holds that it was made of the head of a male child, the first
born and that dead-born, under whose tongue they applyed a lamen of
Gold, whereon were engraved the characters and inscriptions of certain
planets, which the Jews superstitiously wandered up and down with,
instead of the Urim and Thummim, or the Ephod of the High Priest. And
that this original is true and well deduced, there is a manifest
indicium, in that Henry D'Assia, and Bartholomaeus Sibillus affirm, that
the Androides of Albertus, and the Head made by Virgil, were composed of
flesh and bone, yet not by nature, but by art. But this being judged
impossible by modern Authors, and the vertue of Images, Annulets, and
planetary Sigills being in great reputation, men have thought ever since
(taking their opinion from Trismegistus affirming in his Asclepion, that
of the Gods, some were made by the Sovereign God, and others by men,
who, by some art, had the power to unite the invisible Spirits to things
visible and corporeal, as is explained at large by St. Augustine) that
such figures were made of copper or some other metal, whereon men had
wrought under some favourable Aspects of Heaven and the planets.
My design is not absolutely to deny that he might compose some head or
statue of man, like that of Memnon, from which proceeded a small sound
and pleasant noise, when the rising Sun came by his heat to rarify and
force out, by certain small conduits, the air which in the cold of the
night was condensed within it. Or haply they might be like those statues
of Boetius, whereof Cassiodorus speaking said, _Metalla mugiunt_,
_Diomedis in aere grues buccinant, aenus anguis insibilat, aves simulatae
fritinniunt, et quae propriam vocem nesciunt, ab aere dulcedinem probantur
emittere cantilenae_; for such I doubt not but may be made by the help of
that part of Natural Magic which depends on the Mathematics.
_History of Magic._
The title page to this book is wanting;, but the Epistle Dedicatory is
signed J. Davies. By the stile, spelling, and _extensive reading of the
author_, it appears to be a work of the last century.
[169] This Table is suspended in the Seventh Heaven, and guarded from
the Demons, lest they should change or corrupt any thing thereon. Its
length is so great as is the space between Heaven and Earth, its breadth
equal to the distance from the East to the West, and it is made of one
pearl. The divine Pen was created by the finger of God: that also is of
pearls, and of such length and breadth that a swift horse could scarcely
gallop round it in five hundred years. It is so endowed, that self-moved
it writes all things, past, present, and to come. Light, is its ink, and
the language which it uses, only the Angel Seraphael understands.
_Maracci._
[170] They celebrate the night Leileth-ul-beraeth on the 15th of the
month of Schabann, with great apprehension and terror, because they
consider it as the tremendous night on which the angels
Kiramenn-keatibinn, placed on each side of mankind to write down their
good and bad actions, deliver up their books and receive fresh ones for
the continuance of the same employment. It is believed also, that on
that night the archangel Azrail, the angel of death, gives up also his
records and receives another book in which are written the names of all
those destined to die in the following year.
_D'Ohsson._
[171] The Balance of the Dead is an article in almost every creed.
Mohammed borrowed it from the Persians. I know not from whence the Monks
introduced it; probably they were ignorant enough to have invented the
obvious fiction.
In the Vision of Thurcillus the ceremony is accurately described. "At
the end of the north wall, within the church, sate St. Paul, and
opposite him, without, was the Devil and his Angels. At the feet of the
Devil a burning pit flamed up, which was the mouth of the Pit of Hell. A
Balance equally poised, was fixed upon the wall between the Devil and
the Apostle, one scale hanging before each. The Apostle had two weights,
a greater and a less, all shining and like gold, and the Devil also had
two smoky and black ones. Therefore the Souls that were all black came
one after another, with great fear and trembling, to behold the weighing
of their good and evil works: for these weights weighed the works of all
the souls, according to the good or evil which they had done. When the
scale inclined to the Apostle, he took the Soul, and introduced it thro'
the Eastern gate, into the fire of Purgatory, that there it might
expiate its crimes. But when the scale inclined and sunk towards the
Devil, then he and his Angels snatched the soul miserably howling and
cursing the father and mother that begot it to eternal torments, and
cast it with laughter and grinning into the deep and fiery pit which was
at the feet of the Devil. Of this Balance of good and evil much may be
found in the writings of the holy Fathers."
_Matthew Paris._
"Concerning the salvation of Charlemagne, Archbishop Turpin, a man of
holy life, wrote thus. "I, Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, being in my
chamber, in the city of Vienna, saying my prayers, saw a legion of
Devils in the air, who were making a great noise. I adjured one of them
to tell me from whence they came, and wherefore they made so great an
uproar. And he replied that they came from Aix la Chapelle, where a
great Lord had died, and that they were returning in anger because they
had not been able to carry away his soul. I asked him who the great Lord
was, and why they had not been able to carry away his soul. He replied
that it was Charlemagne, and that Saint Jago had been greatly against
them. And I asked him how St. Jago had been against them; and he
replied, we were weighing the good and the evil which he had done in
this world, and Saint Jago brought so much timber and so many stones
from the churches which he had founded in his name, that they greatly
over-balanced all his evil works; and so we had no power over his soul.
And having said this the Devil disappeared."
We must understand from this vision of Archbishop Turpin, that they who
build or repair churches in this world, erect resting places and inns
for their salvation.
_Historia do Imperador Carlos Magno, & dos Doze
Pares de Franca._
Two other corollaries follow from the vision. The Devil's way home from
Aix la Chapelle lay thro' Vienna;--and as churches go by weight, an
architect of Sir John Vanbrugh's school should always be employed."
This Balance of the Dead was an easy and apt metaphor, but clumsily
imagined as an actual mode of trial.
"For take thy Ballaunce, if thou be so wise,
"And weigh the winde that under heaven doth blow;
"Or weigh the light that in the East doth rise:
"Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow
"But if the weight of these thou canst not show,
"Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall."
_Spenser._
[172] This double meaning is in the spirit of oracular prediction. The
classical reader will remember the equivocations of Apollo, the fable of
the young man and the Lion in the tapestry will be more generally
recollected: we have many buildings in England to which this story has
been applied,--Cook's Folly near Bristol derives its name from a similar
tradition.
The History of the Buccaneers affords a remarkable instance of prophecy
occasioning its own accomplishment.
"Before my first going over into the _South-Seas_ with Captain _Sharp_
(and indeed before any Privateers, at least since _Drake_ and
_Oxengham_) had gone that way which we afterwards went, except _La
Sound_, a _French_ Captain, who by Capt. _Wright's_ instructions had
ventured as far as _Cheapo_ town with a body of men, but was driven back
again, I being then on board Capt. _Coxon_, in company with three or
four more Privateers, about four leagues to the East of _Portobel_, we
took the packets bound thither from _Carthagena_. We opened a great
quantity of the Merchant's letters, and found the contents of many of
them to be very surprizing, the Merchants of several parts of
_Old-Spain_ thereby informing their correspondents of _Panama_, and
elsewhere, of a certain prophecy that went about _Spain_ that year, the
tenor of which was, _that there would be_ English _privateers that year
in the_ West-Indies, _who would make such great discoveries, as to open
a door into the_ South-Seas; which they supposed was fastest shut: and
the letters were accordingly full of cautions to their friends to be
very watchful and careful of their coasts.
This door they spake of we all concluded must be the passage over land
through the country of the _Indians_ of _Darien_, who were a little
before this become our friends, and had lately fallen out with the
_Spaniards_, breaking off the intercourse which for some time they had
with them: And upon calling also to mind the frequent invitations we had
from those _Indians_ a little before this time, to pass through their
Country, and fall upon the _Spaniards_ in the _South-Seas_, we from
henceforward began to entertain such thoughts in earnest, and soon came
to a resolution to make those attempts which we afterwards did with
Capt. _Sharp, Coxon, &c._ So that the taking these letters gave the
first life to those bold undertakings: And we took the advantage of the
fears the _Spaniards_ were in from that prophecy, or probable
conjecture, or whatever it were; for we sealed up most of the letters
again, and sent them ashore to _Portobel_.
_Dampier._
[173] The Souls of the Blessed are supposed by some of the Mohammedans
to animate green Birds in the Groves of Paradise. Was this opinion
invented to conciliate the Pagan Arabs, who believed, that of the Blood
near the dead person's brain was formed a Bird named Hamah, which once
in a hundred years visited the sepulchre?
To this there is an allusion in the Moallakat. "Then I knew with
certainty, that, in so fierce a contest with them, many a heavy blow
would make the Perched Birds of the Brain fly quickly from every Skull."
_Poem of Antara._
In the Bahar-Danush, Parrots are called the green-vested resemblers of
Heaven's dwellers. The following passages in the same work may perhaps
allude to the same superstition, or perhaps are merely metaphorical, in
the usual stile of its true Oriental bombast. "The Bird of Understanding
fled from the nest of my brain." "My joints and members seemed as if
they would separate from each other, and the Bird of Life would quit the
nest of my Body." "The Bird of my Soul became a captive in the net of
her glossy ringlets."
I remember in a European Magazine two similar lines by the Author of the
Lives of the Admirals.
_My beating Bosom is a well-wrought cage,
Whence that sweet Gold-finch Hope shall ne'er elope!_
The Grave of Francisco Jorge, the Maronite Martyr, was visited by two
strange Birds of unusual size. No one knew whence they came. They
emblemed, says Vasconcellos, the purity and the indefatigable activity
of his soul.
The inhabitants of Otaheite have assigned a less respectable part of the
Body, as the Seat of the Soul.
The disembowelling of the body there, is always performed in great
secrecy, and with much religious superstition. The bowels are, by these
people, considered as the immediate organs of sensation, where the first
impressions are received, and by which all the operations of the mind
are carried on: it is therefore natural to conclude, that they may
esteem, and venerate the intestines, as bearing the greatest affinity to
the immortal part. I have frequently held conversations on this subject,
with a view to convince them, that all intellectual operations were
carried on in the head; at which they would generally smile, and
intimate, that they had frequently seen men recover whose skulls had
been fractured, and whose heads had otherways been much injured; but
that, in all cases in which the intestines had been wounded, the persons
on a certainty died. Other arguments they would also advance in favour
of their belief; such as the effect of fear, and other passions, which
caused great agitation and uneasiness, and would sometimes produce
sickness at the stomach, which they attributed intirely to the action of
the bowels.
_Vancouver._
[174] When Hosein the son of Ali was sick of a grievous disorder, he
longed for a pomegranate, tho' that fruit was not then in season. Ali
went out, and diligently enquiring found a single one in the possession
of a Jew. As he returned with it, a sick man met him and begged half the
pomegranate, saying it would restore his health. Ali gave him half, and
when he had eaten it, the man requested he would give him the other
half, the sooner to complete his recovery. Ali benignantly complied,
returned to his son and told him what had happened, and Hosein approved
what his father had done.
Immediately behold a miracle! as they were talking together the door was
gently knocked at. He ordered the woman servant to go there, and she
found a man, of all men the most beautiful, who had a plate in his hand
covered with green silk, in which were ten pomegranates. The woman was
astonished at the beauty of the man and of the pomegranates, and she
took one of them and hid it, and carried the other nine to Aly, who
kissed the present. When he had counted them he found that one was
wanting, and said so to the servant, she confessed that she had taken it
on account of its excellence, and Ali gave her her liberty. The
Pomegranates were from Paradise, Hosein was cured of his disease only by
their odour, and rose up immediately, recovered, and in full strength.
_Maracci._
I suspect, says Maracci, that this is a true miracle wrought by some
Christian Saint, and falsely attributed to Ali. However this may be, it
does not appear absurd that God should by some especial favour reward an
act of remarkable charity even in an Infidel, as he has sometimes by a
striking chastisement punished enormous crimes. But the assertion that
the Pomegranates were sent from Paradise, exposes the fable.
Maracci after detailing and ridiculing the Mohammedan miracles,
contrasts with them in an appendix a few of the real and permanent
miracles of Christianity which are proved by the testimony of the whole
world. He selects five as examples. 1. The Chapel of Loretto, brought by
angels from Nazareth to Illyricum, and from Illyricum to Italy; faithful
messengers having been sent to both places, and finding in both its old
foundations, in dimensions and materials, exactly corresponding.
2. The cross of St. Thomas in Urbe Malipuritana (Masulipatan) in the E.
Indies. A Bramin, as the Saint was extended upon his cross in prayer,
slew him. On the anniversary of his martyrdom, during the celebration of
Mass, the cross gradually becomes luminous, till it shines one white
glory. At elevating the host it resumes its natural colour, and sweats
blood profusely, in which the faithful dip their clothes, by which many
miracles are wrought.
3. _Certissimum quia evidentissimum_--at _Barii_ (Bari on the Adriatic)
in Apulia a liquor flows from the bones of St. Nicholas, they call it
St. Nicholas's manna, which being preserved in bottles never corrupts or
breeds worms--except the possessor be corrupt himself--and daily it
works miracles.
4. At Tolentinum (Tolentino in the Marche of Anconia) the arms of St.
Nicholas swell with blood, and pour out copious streams--when any great
calamity impends over Christendom.
5. The blood of St. Jaunarius at Naples.
These, says Maracci, are _miracula perseverantia_, permanent
miracles--and it cannot be said as of the Mohammedan ones, that they are
tricks of the Devil.
[175] In the Bahar-Danush the Simorg is mentioned as a genus--not an
individual, this is heresy,--the unity of the Simorg being expressed in
all the books of canonical Romance.
The Simorg is a monstrous Bird like a Griffin; in _the History of
Caherman_, he is made to say, That he had existed through all the
revolutions of ages and of created things, which passed before the time
of Adam. These created things were reasonable beings, but had not human
shape. They were governed by the various Solomons mentioned in the note
Vol. I. Page 214.
[176] Araf is a place between the Paradise and the Hell of the
Mohammedans, some deem it a veil of separation, some a strong wall;
others hold it to be a Purgatory in which those believers will remain,
whose good and evil works have been so equal that they were neither
virtuous enough to enter Paradise, nor guilty enough to be condemned to
the fire of Hell. From thence they see the glory of the Blessed, and are
near enough to congratulate them; but their ardent desire to partake the
same happiness becomes a great pain. At length at the Day of Judgement,
when all men before they are judged, shall be cited to render homage to
their Creator, those who are here confined shall prostrate themselves
before the face of the Lord, in adoration: and by this act of religion
which shall be accounted a merit, the number of their good works will
exceed their evil ones, and they will enter into glory.
Saadi says that Araf appears a hell to the happy, and a Paradise to the
damned.
_D'Herbelot._
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