Most of the impassioned expressions of our good poets have come finished

from their pen, and appear easy, as if they had in reality been composed

without labor; the imagination, therefore, often conceives and brings

forth easily. It is not thus with didactic works, which require art to

make them appear easy. For example, there is much less ease than

profundity in Pope's "Essay on Man."

Bad works may be rapidly constructed, which, having no genius, will

appear easy, and it is often the lot of those who, without genius, have

the unfortunate habit of composing. It is in this sense that a personage

of the old comedy, called the "Italian," says to another: "Thou makest

bad verses admirably well."

The term "easy" is an insult to a woman, but is sometimes in society

praise for a man; it is, however, a fault in a statesman. The manners of

Atticus were easy; he was the most amiable of the Romans; the easy

Cleopatra gave herself as easily to Antony as to Cæsar; the easy

Claudius allowed himself to be governed by Agrippina; easy applied to

Claudius is only a lenitive, the proper expression is _weak_.

An easy man is in general one possessed of a mind which easily gives

itself up to reason and remonstrance--a heart which melts at the prayers

which are made to it; while a weak man is one who allows too much

authority over him.

ECLIPSE.

In the greatest part of the known world every extraordinary phenomenon

was for a long time believed to be the presage of some happy or

miserable event. Thus the Roman historians have not failed to observe

that an eclipse of the sun accompanied the birth of Romulus, that

another announced his death, and that a third attended the foundation of

the city of Rome.

We have already spoken of the article entitled "The Vision of

Constantine," of the apparition of the cross which preceded the triumph

of Christianity, and under the article on "Prophecy," we shall treat of

the new star which enlightened the birth of Jesus. We will, therefore,

here confine ourselves to what has been said of the darkness with which

all the earth was covered when He gave up the ghost.

The writers of the Greek and Romish Churches have quoted as authentic

two letters attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, in which he relates

that being at Heliopolis in Egypt, with his friend Apollophanes, he

suddenly saw, about the sixth hour, the moon pass underneath the sun,

which caused a great eclipse. Afterwards, in the ninth hour, they

perceived the moon quitting the place which she occupied and return to

the opposite side of the diameter. They then took the rules of Philip

Aridæus, and, having examined the course of the stars, they found that

the sun could not have been naturally eclipsed at that time. Further,

they observed that the moon, contrary to her natural motion, instead of

going to the west to range herself under the sun, approached on the

eastern side and that she returned behind on the same side, which caused

Apollophanes to say, "These, my dear Dionysius, are changes of Divine

things," to which Dionysius replied, "Either the author of nature

suffers, or the machine of the universe will be soon destroyed."

Dionysius adds that having remarked the exact time and year of this

prodigy, and compared them with what Paul afterwards told him, he

yielded up to the truth as well as his friend. This is what led to the

belief that the darkness happening at the death of Jesus Christ was

caused by a supernatural eclipse; and what has extended this opinion is

that Maldonat says it is that of almost all the Catholics. How is it

possible to resist the authority of an ocular, enlightened, and

disinterested witness, since it was supposed that when he saw this

eclipse Dionysius was a pagan?

As these pretended letters of Dionysius were not forged until towards

the fifteenth or sixteenth century, Eusebius of Cæsarea was contented

with quoting the evidence of Phlegon, a freed man of the emperor Adrian.

This author was also a pagan, and had written "The History of the

Olympiads," in sixteen books, from their origin to the year 140 of the

vulgar era. He is made to say that in the fourth year of the two hundred

and second Olympiad there was the greatest eclipse of the sun that had

ever been seen; the day was changed to night at the sixth hour, the

stars were seen, and an earthquake overthrew several edifices in the

city of Nicæa in Bithynia. Eusebius adds that the same events are

related in the ancient monuments of the Greeks, as having happened in

the eighteenth year of Tiberius. It is thought that Eusebius alluded to

Thallus, a Greek historian already cited by Justin, Tertullian, and

Julius Africanus, but neither the work of Thallus, nor that of Phlegon

having reached us, we can only judge of the accuracy of these two

quotations of reasoning.

It is true that the Paschal "Chronicle of the Greeks," as well as St.

Jerome Anastatius, the author of the "_Historia Miscella_," and

Freculphus of Luxem, among the Latins, all unite in representing the

fragment of Phlegon in the same manner. But it is known that these five

witnesses, so uniform in their dispositions, translated or copied the

passage, not from Phlegon himself, but from Eusebius; while John

Philoponus, who had read Phlegon, far from agreeing with Eusebius,

differs from him by two years. We could also name Maximus and Maleba,

who lived when the work of Phlegon still existed, and the result of an

examination of the whole is that five of the quoted authors copy

Eusebius. Philoponus, who really saw the work of Phlegon, gives a second

reading, Maximus a third, and Maleba a fourth, so that they are far from

relating the passage in the same manner.

In short, the calculations of Hodgson, Halley, Whiston, and Gale Morris

have demonstrated that Phlegon and Thallus speak of a natural eclipse

which happened November 24, in the first year of the two hundred and

second Olympiad, and not in the fourth year, as Eusebius pretends. Its

size at Nicæa in Bithynia, was, according to Whiston, only from nine to

ten digits, that is to say, two-thirds and a half of the sun's disc. It

began at a quarter past eight, and ended at five minutes past ten, and

between Cairo in Egypt, and Jerusalem, according to Mr. Gale Morris, the

sun was totally obscured for nearly two minutes. At Jerusalem the middle

of the eclipse happened about an hour and a quarter after noon.

But what ought to spare all this discussion is that Tertullian says the

day became suddenly dark while the sun was in the midst of his career;

that the pagans believed that it was an eclipse, not knowing that it had

been predicted by the prophet Amos in these words: "I will cause the sun

to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day."

"They," adds Tertullian, "who have sought for the cause of this event

and could not discover it, have denied it; but the fact is certain, and

you will find it noted in your archives."

Origen, on the contrary, says that it is not astonishing foreign authors

have said nothing about the darknesses of which the evangelists speak,

since they only appeared in the environs of Jerusalem; Judæa, according

to him, being designated under the name of all the earth in more than

one place in Scripture. He also avows that the passage in the Gospel of

St. Luke, in which we read that in his time all the earth was covered

with darkness, on account of an eclipse of the sun, had been thus

falsified by some ignorant Christian who thought thereby to throw a

light on the text of the evangelist, or by some ill-intentioned enemy

who wished a pretext to calumniate the Church, as if the evangelists had

remarked an eclipse at a time when it was very evident that it could not

have happened. "It is true," adds he, "that Phlegon says that there was

one under Tiberius, but as he does not say that it happened at the full

moon there is nothing wonderful in that."

"These obscurations," continues Origen, "were of the nature of those

which covered Egypt in the time of Moses, and were not felt in the

quarter in which the Israelites dwelt. Those of Egypt lasted three days,

while those of Jerusalem only lasted three hours; the first were after

the manner of the second, and even as Moses raised his hands to heaven

and invoked the Lord to draw them down on Egypt, so Jesus Christ, to

cover Jerusalem with darkness, extended his hands on the cross against

an ungrateful people who had cried: 'Crucify him, crucify him!'"

We may, in this case, exclaim with Plutarch, that the darkness of

superstition is more dangerous than that of eclipses.

ECONOMY (RURAL).

The primitive economy, that which is the foundation of all the rest, is

rural. In early times it was exhibited in the patriarchal life and

especially in that of Abraham, who made a long journey through the arid

deserts of Memphis to buy corn. I shall continue, with due respect, to

discard all that is divine in the history of Abraham, and attend to his

rural economy alone.

I do not learn that he ever had a house; he quitted the most fertile

country of the universe and towns in which there were commodious houses,

to go wandering in countries, the languages of which he did not

understand.

He went from Sodom into the desert of Gerar without forming the least

establishment. When he turned away Hagar and the child Ishmael it was

still in a desert and all the food he gave them was a morsel of bread

and a cruse of water. When he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to

the Lord it was again in a desert. He cut the wood himself to burn the

victim and put it on the back of Isaac, whom he was going to immolate.

His wife died in a place called Kirgath-arba, or Hebron; he had not six

feet of earth in which to bury her, but was obliged to buy a cave to

deposit her body. This was the only piece of land which he ever

possessed.

However, he had many children, for, without reckoning Isaac and his

posterity, his second wife Keturah, at the age of one hundred and forty

years, according to the ordinary calculation, bore him five male

children, who departed towards Arabia.

It is not said that Isaac had a single piece of land in the country in

which his father died; on the contrary, he went into the desert of Gerar

with his wife, Rebecca, to the same Abimelech, king of Gerar, who had

been in love with his mother.

The king of the desert became also amorous of Rebecca, whom her husband

caused to pass for his sister, as Abraham had acted with regard to Sarah

and this same King Abimelech forty years before. It is rather

astonishing that in this family the wife always passed for the sister

when there was anything to be gained, but as these facts are

consecrated, it is for us to maintain a respectful silence.

Scripture says that Abraham enriched himself in this horrible country,

which became fertile for his benefit, and that he became extremely

powerful. But it is also mentioned that he had no water to drink; that

he had a great quarrel with the king's herdsmen for a well; and it is

easy to discover that he still had not a house of his own.

His children, Esau and Jacob, had not a greater establishment than their

father. Jacob was obliged to seek his fortune in Mesopotamia, whence

Abraham came; he served seven years for one of the daughters of Laban,

and seven other years to obtain the second daughter. He fled with his

wives and the flocks of his father-in-law, who pursued him. A precarious

fortune, that of Jacob.

Esau is represented as wandering like Jacob. None of the twelve

patriarchs, the children of Jacob, had any fixed dwelling, or a field of

which they were the proprietors. They reposed in their tents like

Bedouin Arabs.

It is clear that this patriarchal life would not conveniently suit the

temperature of our atmosphere. A good cultivator, such as Pignoux of

Auvergne, must have a convenient house with an aspect towards the east,

large barns and stables, stalls properly built, the whole amounting to

about fifty thousand francs of our present money in value. He must sow a

hundred acres with corn, besides having good pastures; he should

possess some acres of vineyard, and about fifty for inferior grain and

herbs, thirty acres of wood, a plantation of mulberries, silkworms, and

bees. With all these advantages well economized, he can maintain a

family in abundance. His land will daily improve; he will support them

without fearing the irregularity of the seasons and the weight of taxes,

because one good year repairs the damages of two bad ones. He will enjoy

in his domain a real sovereignty, which will be subject only to the

laws. It is the most natural state of man, the most tranquil, the most

happy, and, unfortunately, the most rare.

The son of this venerable patriarch, seeing himself rich, is disgusted

with paying the humiliating tax of the taille. Having unfortunately

learned some Latin he repairs to town, buys a post which exempts him

from the tax and which bestows nobility. He sells his domain to pay for

his vanity, marries a girl brought up in luxury who dishonors and ruins

him; he dies in beggary, and his only son wears a livery in Paris.

ECONOMY OF SPEECH--

TO SPEAK BY ECONOMY.

This is an expression consecrated in its appropriation by the fathers of

the Church and even by the primitive propagators of our holy religion.

It signifies the application of oratory to circumstances.

For example: St. Paul, being a Christian, comes to the temple of the

Jews to perform the Judaic rites, in order to show that he does not

forsake the Mosaic law; he is recognized at the end of a week and

accused of having profaned the temple. Loaded with blows, he is dragged

along by the mob; the tribune of the cohort--_tribunis cohortis_

--arrives, and binds him with a double chain. The next day this tribune

assembles the council and carries Paul before it, when the High Priest

Ananias commences proceedings by giving him a box on the ear, on which

Paul salutes him with the epithet of "a whited wall."

"But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other

Pharisees, he cried out in the council, 'Men and brethren, I am a

Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the

dead I am called in question.' And when he had so said there arose a

discussion between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude

was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection,

neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both."

It is very evident from the text that Paul was not a Pharisee after he

became a Christian and that there was in this affair no question either

of resurrection or hope, of angel or spirit.

The text shows that Paul spoke thus only to embroil the Pharisees and

Sadducees. This was speaking with economy, that is to say, with

prudence; it was a pious artifice which, perhaps, would not have been

permitted to any but an apostle.

It is thus that almost all the fathers of the Church have spoken "with

economy." St. Jerome develops this method admirably in his fifty-fourth

letter to Pammachus. Weigh his words. After having said that there are

occasions when it is necessary to present a loaf and to throw a stone,

he continues thus:

"Pray read Demosthenes, read Cicero, and if these rhetoricians displease

you because their art consists in speaking of the seeming rather than

the true, read Plato, Theophrastus, Xenophon, Aristotle, and all those

who, having dipped into the fountain of Socrates, drew different waters

from it. Is there among them any candor, any simplicity? What terms

among them are not ambiguous, and what sense do they not make free with

to bear away the palm of victory? Origen, Methodius, Eusebius,

Apollinarus, have written a million of arguments against Celsus and

Porphyry. Consider with what artifice, with what problematic subtlety

they combat the spirit of the devil. They do not say what they think,

but what it is expedient to say: _Non quod sentiunt, sed quod necesse

est dicunt_. And not to mention other Latins--Tertullian, Cyprian,

Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, and Hilarius--whom I will not cite

here; I will content myself with relating the example of the Apostle

Paul," etc.

St. Augustine often writes with economy. He so accommodates himself to

time and circumstances that in one of his epistles he confesses that he

explained the Trinity only because he must say something.

Assuredly this was not because he doubted the Holy Trinity, but he felt

how ineffable this mystery is and wished to content the curiosity of the

people.

This method was always received in theology. It employed an argument

against the Eucratics, which was the cause of triumph to the

Carpocratians; and when it afterwards disputed with the Carpocratians

its arms were changed.

It is asserted that Jesus Christ died for many when the number of

rejected is set forth, but when his universal bounty is to be manifested

he is said to have died for all. Here you take the real sense for the

figurative; there the figurative for the real, as prudence and

expediency direct.

Such practices are not admitted in justice. A witness would be punished

who told the _pour_ and _contre_ of a capital offence. But there is an

infinite difference between vile human interests, which require the

greatest clearness, and divine interests, which are hidden in an

impenetrable abyss. The same judges who require indubitable

demonstrative proofs will be contented in sermons with moral proofs, and

even with declamations exhibiting no proofs at all.

St. Augustine speaks with economy, when he says, "I believe, because it

is absurd; I believe, because it is impossible." These words, which

would be extravagant in all worldly affairs, are very respectable in

theology. They signify that what is absurd and impossible to mortal eyes

is not so to the eyes of God; God has revealed to me these pretended

absurdities, these apparent impossibilities, therefore I ought to

believe them.

An advocate would not be allowed to speak thus at the bar. They would

confine in a lunatic asylum a witness who might say, "I assert that the

accused, while shut up in a country house in Martinique, killed a man in

Paris, and I am the more certain of this homicide because it is absurd

and impossible." But revelations, miracles, and faith are quite a

distinct order of things.

The same St. Augustine observes in his one hundred and fifty-third

letter, "It is written that the whole world belongs to the faithful, and

infidels have not an obolus that they possess legitimately."

If upon this principle a brace of bankers were to wait upon me to assure

me that they were of the faithful, and in that capacity had appropriated

the property belonging to me, a miserable worldling, to themselves, it

is certain that they would be committed to the Châtelet, in spite of the

economy of the language of St. Augustine.

St. Irenæus asserts that we must not condemn the incest of the two

daughters of Lot, nor that of Thamar with her father-in-law, because the

Holy Scripture has not expressly declared them criminal. This verbal

economy prevents not the legal punishment of incest among ourselves. It

is true that if the Lord expressly ordered people to commit incest it

would not be sinful, which is the economy of Irenæus. His laudable

object is to make us respect everything in the Holy Scriptures, but as

God has not expressly praised the foregoing doings of the daughters of

Lot and of Judah we are permitted to condemn them.

All the first Christians, without exception, thought of war like the

Quakers and Dunkards of the present day, and the Brahmins, both ancient

and modern. Tertullian is the father who is most explicit against this

legal species of murder, which our vile human nature renders expedient.

"No custom, no rule," says he, "can render this criminal destruction

legitimate."

Nevertheless, after assuring us that no Christian can carry arms, he

says, "by economy," in the same book, in order to intimidate the Roman

Empire, "although of such recent origin, we fill your cities and your

_armies_."

It is in the same spirit that he asserts that Pilate was a Christian in

his heart, and the whole of his apology is filled with similar

assertions, which redoubled the zeal of his proselytes.

Let us terminate these examples of the economical style, which are

numberless, by a passage of St. Jerome, in his controversy with Jovian

upon second marriages. The holy Jerome roundly asserts that it is plain,

by the formation of the two sexes--in the description of which he is

rather particular--that they are destined for each other, and for

propagation. It follows, therefore, that they are to make love without

ceasing, in order that their respective faculties may not be bestowed in

vain. This being the case, why should not men and women marry again?

Why, indeed, is a man to deny his wife to his friend if a cessation of

attention on his own part be personally convenient? He may present the

wife of another with a loaf of bread if she be hungry, and why may not

her other wants be supplied, if they are urgent? Functions are not given

to lie dormant, etc.

After such a passage it is useless to quote any more, but it is

necessary to remark, by the way, that the economical style, so

intimately connected with the polemical, ought to be employed with the

greatest circumspection, and that it belongs not to the profane to

imitate the things hazarded by the saints, either as regards the heat of

their zeal or the piquancy of their delivery.

ELEGANCE.

According to some authors this word comes from "_electus_," chosen; it

does not appear that its etymology can be derived from any other Latin

word, since all is choice that is elegant. Elegance is the result of

regularity and grace.

This word is employed in speaking of painting and sculpture. _Elegans

signum_ is opposed to _signum rigens_--a proportionate figure, the

rounded outlines of which are expressed with softness, to a cold and

badly-finished figure.

The severity of the ancient Romans gave an odious sense to the word

"_elegantia_." They regarded all kinds of elegance as affectation and

far-fetched politeness, unworthy the gravity of the first ages. "_Vitæ

non laudi fuit_," says Aulus Gellius. They call him an "elegant man,"

whom in these days we designate a _petit-maître (bellus homuncio),_ and

which the English call a "beau"; but towards the time of Cicero, when

manners received their last degree of refinement, _elegans_ was always

deemed laudatory. Cicero makes use of this word in a hundred places to

describe a man or a polite discourse. At that time even a repast was

called elegant, which is scarcely the case among us.

This term among the French, as among the ancient Romans, is confined to

sculpture, painting, eloquence, and still more to poetry; it does not

precisely mean the same thing as grace.

The word "grace" applies particularly to the countenance, and we do not

say an elegant face, as we say elegant contours; the reason is that

grace always relates to something in motion, and it is in the

countenance that the mind appears; thus we do not say an elegant gait,

because gait includes motion.

The elegance of a discourse is not its eloquence; it is a part of it; it

is neither the harmony nor metre alone; it is clearness, metre, and

choice of words, united.

There are languages in Europe in which nothing is more scarce than an

elegant expression. Rude terminations, frequent consonants, and

auxiliary-verbs grammatically repeated in the same sentence, offend the

ears even of the natives themselves.

A discourse may be elegant without being good, elegance being, in

reality, only a choice of words; but a discourse cannot be absolutely

good without being elegant. Elegance is still more necessary to poetry

than eloquence, because it is a part of that harmony so necessary to

verse.

An orator may convince and affect even without elegance, purity, or

number; a poet cannot really do so without being elegant: it is one of

the principal merits of Virgil. Horace is much less elegant in his

satires and epistles, so that he is much less of a poet _sermoni

proprior_.

The great point in poetry and the oratorical art is that the elegance

should never appear forced; and the poet in that, as in other things,

has greater difficulties than the orator, for harmony being the base of

his art, he must not permit a succession of harsh syllables. He must

even sometimes sacrifice a little of the thought to elegance of

expression, which is a constraint that the orator never experiences.

It should be remarked that if elegance always appears easy, all that is

easy and natural is not, however, elegant.

It is seldom said of a comedy that it is elegantly written. The

simplicity and rapidity of a familiar dialogue exclude this merit, so

proper to all other poetry. Elegance would seem inconsistent with the

comic. A thing elegantly said would not be laughed at, though most of

the verses of Molière's "_Amphitryon,_" with the exception of those of

mere pleasantry, are elegantly written. The mixture of gods and men in

this piece, so unique in its kind, and the irregular verses, forming a

number of madrigals, are perhaps the cause.

A madrigal requires to be more elegant than an epigram, because the

madrigal bears somewhat the nature of the ode, and the epigram belongs

to the comic. The one is made to express a delicate sentiment, and the

other a ludicrous one.

Elegance should not be attended to in the sublime: it would weaken it.

If we read of the elegance of the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias, it would

be a satire. The elegance of the "Venus of Praxiteles" may be properly

alluded to.

ELIAS OR ELIJAH, AND ENOCH.

Elias and Enoch are two very important personages of antiquity. They are

the only mortals who have been taken out of the world without having

first tasted of death. A very learned man has pretended that these are

allegorical personages. The father and mother of Elias are unknown. He

believes that his country, Gilead, signifies nothing but the

circulation of time. He proves it to have come from Galgala, which

signifies revolution. But what signifies the name of the village of

Galgala!

The word Elias has a sensible relation to that of Elios, the sun. The

burned sacrifice offered by Elias, and lighted by fire from heaven, is

an image of that which can be done by the united rays of the sun. The

rain which falls, after great heats, is also a physical truth.

The chariot of fire and the fiery horses, which bore Elias to heaven,

are a lively image of the four horses of the sun. The return of Elias at

the end of the world seems to accord with the ancient opinion, that the

sun would extinguish itself in the waters, in the midst of the general

destruction that was expected, for almost all antiquity was for a long

time persuaded that the world would sooner or later be destroyed.

We do not adopt these allegories; we only stand by those related in the

Old Testament.

Enoch is as singular a personage as Elias, only that Genesis names his

father and son, while the family of Elias is unknown. The inhabitants of

both East and West have celebrated this Enoch.

The Holy Scripture, which is our infallible guide, informs us that Enoch

was the father of Methuselah, or Methusalem, and that he only dwelt on

the earth three hundred and sixty-five years, which seems a very short

life for one of the first patriarchs. It is said that he walked in the

way of God and that he appeared no longer because God carried him away.

"It is that," says Calmet, "which makes the holy fathers and most of the

commentators assure us that Enoch still lives; that God has borne him

out of the world as well as Elias; that both will come before the last

judgment to oppose the antichrist; that Elias will preach to the Jews,

and Enoch to the Gentiles."

St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews--which has been contested--says

expressly, "by faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death,

because death had translated him."

St. Justin, or somebody who had taken his name, says that Elias and

Enoch are in a terrestrial paradise, and that they there wait the second

coming of Jesus Christ.

St. Jerome, on the contrary, believes that Enoch and Elias are in

heaven. It is the same Enoch, the seventh man after Adam, who is

pretended to have written the book quoted by St. Jude.

Tertullian says that this work was preserved in the ark, and even that

Enoch made a second copy of it after the deluge.

This is what the Holy Scripture and the holy fathers relate of Enoch;

but the profane writers of the East tell us much more. They believe that

there really was an Enoch, and that he was the first who made slaves of

prisoners of war; they sometimes call him Enoc, and sometimes Edris.

They say that he was the same who gave laws to the Egyptians under the

name of Thaut, called by the Greeks Hermes Trismegistus. They give him a

son named Sabi, the author of the religion of the Sabæans.

There was a tradition in Phrygia on a certain Anach, the same whom the

Hebrews call Enoch. The Phrygians held this tradition from the Chaldæans

or Babylonians, who also recognized an Enoch, or Anach, as the inventor

of astronomy.

They wept for Enoch one day in the year in Phrygia, as they wept for

Adonis among the Phœnicians.

The ingenious and profound writer, who believes Elias a person purely

allegorical, thinks the same of Enoch. He believes that Enoch, Anach,

Annoch, signified the year; that the Orientals wept for it, as for

Adonis, and that they rejoiced at the commencement of the new year; that

Janus, afterwards known in Italy, was the ancient Anach, or Annoch, of

Asia; that not only Enoch formerly signified, among all nations, the

beginning and end of the year, but the last day of the week; that the

names of Anne, John, Januarius, Janvier, and January, all come from the

same source.

It is difficult to penetrate the depths of ancient history. When we

seize truth in the dark, we are never sure of retaining her. It is

absolutely necessary for a Christian to hold by the Scriptures, whatever

difficulty he may have in understanding them.

ELOQUENCE.

Eloquence was created before the rules of rhetoric, as the languages are

formed before grammar.

Nature renders men eloquent under the influence of great interests or

passions. A person much excited sees things with a different eye from

other men. To him all is the object of rapid comparison and metaphor.

Without premeditation, he vivifies all, and makes all who listen to him

partake of his enthusiasm.

A very enlightened philosopher has remarked that people often express

themselves by figures; that nothing is more common or more natural than

the turns called tropes.

Thus, in all languages, the heart burns, courage is kindled, the eyes

sparkle; the mind is oppressed, it is divided, it is exhausted; the

blood freezes, the head is turned upside down; we are inflated with

pride, intoxicated with vengeance. Nature is everywhere painted in these

strong images, which have become common.

It is from her that instinct learns to assume a modest tone and air,

when it is necessary. The natural desire of captivating our judges and

masters; the concentrated energies of a profoundly stricken soul, which

prepares to display the sentiments which oppress it, are the first

teachers of this art.

It is the same nature which sometimes inspires lively and animated

sallies; a strong impulse or a pressing danger prompts the imagination

suddenly. Thus a captain of the first caliphs, seeing the Mussulmans fly

from the field of battle, cried out, "Where are you running to? Your

enemies are not there."

This speech has been given to many captains; it is attributed to

Cromwell. Strong minds much oftener accord than fine wits.

Rasi, a Mussulman, captain of the time of Mahomet, seeing his Arabs

frightened at the death of their general, Derar, said to them, "What

does it signify that Derar is dead? God is living, and observes your

actions."

Where is there a more eloquent man than that English sailor who decided

the war against Spain in 1740? "When the Spaniards, having mutilated me,

were going to kill me, I recommended my soul to God, and my vengeance to

my country!"

Nature, then, elicits eloquence; and if it be said that poets are

created and orators formed, it is applicable only when eloquence is

forced to study the laws, the genius of the judges, and the manners of

the times. Nature alone is spontaneously eloquent.

The precepts always follow the art. Tisias was the first who collected

the laws of eloquence, of which nature gives the first rules. Plato

afterwards said, in his "_Gorgias_," that an orator should have the

subtlety of the logician, the science of the philosopher, almost the

diction of the poet, and the voice and gesture of the greatest actors.

Aristotle, also, showed that true philosophy is the secret guide to

perfection in all the arts. He discovered the sources of eloquence in

his "Book of Rhetoric." He showed that logic is the foundation of the

art of persuasion, and that to be eloquent is to know how to

demonstrate.

He distinguished three kinds of eloquence: the deliberative, the

demonstrative, and the judiciary. The deliberative is employed to exhort

those who deliberate in taking a part in war, in peace, etc.; the

demonstrative, to show that which is worthy of praise or blame; the

judiciary, to persuade, absolve, condemn, etc.

He afterwards treats of the manners and passions with which all orators

should be acquainted.

He examines the proofs which should be employed in these three species

of eloquence, and finally he treats of elocution, without which all

would languish. He recommends metaphors, provided they are just and

noble; and, above all, he requires consistency and decorum.

All these precepts breathe the enlightened precision of a philosopher,

and the politeness of an Athenian; and, in giving the rules of

eloquence, he is eloquent with simplicity.

It is to be remarked, that Greece was the only country in the world in

which the laws of eloquence were then known, because it was the only one

in which true eloquence existed.

The grosser art was known to all men; sublime traits have everywhere

escaped from nature at all times; but to rouse the minds of the whole of

a polished nation--to please, convince, and affect at the same time,

belonged only to the Greeks.

The Orientals were almost all slaves; and it is one of the

characteristics of servitude to exaggerate everything. Thus the Asiatic

eloquence was monstrous. The West was barbarous in the time of

Aristotle.

True eloquence began to show itself in the time of the Gracchi, and was

not perfected until the time of Cicero. Mark Antony, the orator

Hortensius, Curion, Cæsar, and several others, were eloquent men.

This eloquence perished with the republic, like that of Athens. Sublime

eloquence, it is said, belongs only to liberty; it consists in telling

bold truths, in displaying strong reasons and representations. A man

often dislikes truth, fears reason, and likes a well-turned compliment

better than the sublimest eloquence.

Cicero, after having given the examples in his harangues, gave the

precepts in his "Book of the Orator"; he followed almost all the methods

of Aristotle, and explained himself in the style of Plato.

It distinguishes the simple species, the temperate, and the sublime.

Rollin has followed this division in his "Treatise on Study"; and he

pretends that which Cicero does not, that the "temperate" is a

beautiful river, shaded with green forests on both sides; the "simple,"

a properly-served table, of which all the meats are of excellent flavor,

and from which all refinement is banished; that the "sublime" thunders

forth, and is an impetuous current which overthrows all that resists it.

Without sitting down to this table, without following this thunderbolt,

this current, or this river, every man of sense must see that simple

eloquence is that which has simple things to expose, and that clearness

and elegance are all that are necessary to it.

There is no occasion to read Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, to feel

that an advocate who begins by a pompous exordium on the subject of a

partition wall is ridiculous; it was, however, the fault of the bar

until the middle of the seventeenth century; they spoke with emphasis of

the most trivial things. Volumes of these examples may be compiled; but

all might be reduced to this speech of a witty advocate, who, observing

that his adversary was speaking of the Trojan war and of Scamander,

interrupted him by saying, "The court will observe that my client is not

called Scamander, but Michaut." The sublime species can only regard

powerful interests, treated of in a great assembly.

There may still be seen lively traces of it in the Parliament of

England': several harangues partook of it which were pronounced there in

1739, when they debated about declaring war against Spain. The spirits

of Cicero and Demosthenes seem to have dictated several passages in

their speeches; but they will not descend to posterity like those of the

Greeks and Romans, because they want the art and charm of diction, which

place the seal of immortality on good works.

The temperate species is that of those preparatory discourses, of those

public speeches, and of those studied compliments, in which the

deficiency of matter must be concealed with flowers.

These three species are often mingled, as also the three objects of

eloquence, according to Aristotle: the great merit of the orator

consists in uniting them with judgment.

Great eloquence can scarcely be known to the bar in France, because it

does not conduct to honors, as in Athens, Rome, and at present in

London; neither has it great public interests for its object; it is

confined to funeral orations, in which it borders a little upon poetry.

Bossuet, and after him Fléchier, seem to have obeyed that precept of

Plato, which teaches us that the elocution of an orator may sometimes be

the same as that of a poet.

Pulpit oratory had been almost barbarous until P. Bourdaloue; he was one

of the first who caused reason to be spoken there.

The English did not arrive at that art until a later date, as is avowed

by Burnet, bishop of Salisbury. They knew not the funeral oration; they

avoided, in their sermons, all those vehement turns which appeared not

to them consistent with the simplicity of the Gospel; and they were

diffident of using those far-fetched divisions which are condemned by

Arch-bishop Fénelon, in his dialogues "_Sur l'Éloquence_."

Though our sermons turn on the most important subjects to man, they

supply few of those striking parts which, like the fine passages of

Cicero and Demosthenes, are fit to become the models of all the western

nations. The reader will therefore be glad to learn the effect produced

by M. Massillon, since bishop of Clermont, the first time that he

preached his famous sermon on the small number of the elect. A kind of

transport seized all the audience; they rose involuntarily; the murmurs

of acclamation and surprise were so great as to disturb the orator; and

this confusion only served to augment the pathos of his discourse. The

following is the passage:

"I will suppose that this is our last hour, that the heavens open over

our heads, that time is past, and that eternity commences; that Jesus

Christ is going to appear to judge us according to our works, and that

we are all here to receive from Him the sentence of eternal life or

death: I ask you, overwhelmed with terror like yourselves, without

separating my lot from your own, and putting myself in the same

situation in which we must all one day appear before God our judge--if

Jesus Christ were now to make the terrible separation of the just from

the unjust, do you believe that the greater part would be saved? Do you

believe that the number of the righteous would be in the least degree

equal to the number of the sinners? Do you believe that, if He now

discussed the works of the great number who are in this church, He would

find ten righteous souls among us? Would He find a single one?"

There are several different editions of this discourse, but the

substance is the same in all of them.

This figure, the boldest which was ever employed, and the best timed, is

one of the finest turns of eloquence which can be read either among the

ancients or moderns; and the rest of the discourse is not unworthy of

this brilliant appeal.

Preachers who cannot imitate these fine models would do well to learn

them by heart, and deliver them to their congregations--supposing that

they have the rare talent of declamation--instead of preaching to them,

in a languishing style, things as common-place as they are useless.

It is asked, if eloquence be permitted to historians? That which belongs

to them consists in the art of arranging events, in being always elegant

in their expositions, sometimes lively and impressive, sometimes

elaborate and florid; in being strong and true in their pictures of

general manners and principal personages, and in the reflections

naturally incorporated with the narrative, so that they should not

appear to be obtruded. The eloquence of Demosthenes belongs not to

Thucydides; a studied harangue, put into the mouth of a hero who never

pronounced it is, in the opinion of many enlightened minds, nothing more

than a splendid defect.

If, however, these licences be permitted, the following is an occasion

in which Mézeray, in his great history, may obtain grace for a boldness

so approved by the ancients, to whom he is equal, at least on this

occasion. It is at the commencement of the reign of Henry IV., when that

prince, with very few troops, was opposed near Dieppe by an army of

thirty thousand men, and was advised to retire into England, Mézeray

excels himself in making a speech for Marshal Biron, who really was a

man of genius, and might have said a part of that which the historian

attributes to him:

"What, sire, are you advised to cross the sea, as if there was no other

way of preserving your kingdom than by quitting it? If you were not in

France, your friends would have you run all hazards and surmount all

obstacles to get there; and now you are here, they would have you

depart--would have you voluntarily do that to which the greatest efforts

of your enemies ought not to constrain you! In your present state, to go

out of France only for four-and-twenty hours would be to banish yourself

from it forever. As to the danger, it is not so great as represented;

those who think to overcome us are either the same whom we shut up so

easily in Paris, or people who are not much better, and will rapidly

have more subjects of dispute among themselves than against us. In

short, sire, we are in France, and we must remain here; we must show

ourselves worthy of it; we must either conquer it or die for it; and

even when there is no other safety for your sacred person than in

flight, I well know that you would a thousand times rather die planted

in the soil, than save yourself by such means. Your majesty would never

suffer it to be said that a younger brother of the house of Lorraine had

made you retire, and, still less, that you had been seen to beg at the

door of a foreign prince. No, no, sire--there is neither crown nor honor

for you across the sea; if you thus demand the succor of England, it

will not be granted; if you present yourself at the port of Rochelle, as

a man anxious to save himself, you will only meet with reproaches and

contempt. I cannot believe that you would rather trust your person to

the inconstancy of the waves, or the mercy of a stranger, than to so

many brave gentlemen and old soldiers, who are ready to serve you as

ramparts and bucklers; and I am too much devoted to your majesty to

conceal from you, that if you seek your safety elsewhere than in their

virtue, they will be obliged to seek theirs in a different party from

your own."

This fine speech which Mézeray puts into the mouth of Marshal Biron is

no doubt what Henry IV. felt in his heart.

Much more might be said upon the subject; but the books treating of

eloquence have already said too much; and in an enlightened age,

genius, aided by examples, knows more of it than can be taught by all

the masters in the world.

EMBLEMS.

FIGURES, ALLEGORIES, SYMBOLS, ETC.

In Antiquity, everything is emblematical and figurative. The Chaldæans

began with placing a ram, two kids, and a bull among the constellations,

to indicate the productions of the earth in spring. In Persia, fire is

the emblem of the divinity; the celestial dog gives notice to the

Egyptians of the inundations of the Nile; the serpent, concealing its

tail in its head, becomes the image of eternity. All nature is painted

and disguised.

There are still to be found in India many of those gigantic and terrific

statues which we have already mentioned, representing virtue furnished

with ten arms, with which it may successfully contend against the vices,

and which our poor missionaries mistook for representations of the

devil; taking it for granted, that all those who did not speak French or

Italian were worshippers of the devil.

Show all these symbols devised by antiquity to a man of clear sense, but

who has never heard them at all mentioned or alluded to, and he will not

have the slightest idea of their meaning. It would be to him a perfectly

new language.

The ancient poetical theologians were under the necessity of ascribing

to the deity eyes, hands, and feet; of describing him under the figure

of a man.

St. Clement of Alexandria quotes verses from Xenophanes the Colophonian,

which state that every species of animal supplies metaphor to aid the

imagination in its ideas of the deity--the wings of the bird, the speed

of the horse, and the strength of the lion. It is evident, from these

verses of Xenophanes, that it is by no means a practice of recent date

for men to represent God after their own image. The ancient Thracian

Orpheus, the first theologian among the Greeks, who lived long before

Homer, according to the same Clement of Alexandria, describes God as

seated upon the clouds, and tranquilly ruling the whirlwind and the

storm. His feet reach the earth, and His hands extend from one ocean to

the other. He is the beginning, middle, and end of all things.

Everything being thus represented by figure and emblem, philosophers,

and particularly those among them who travelled to India, employed the

same method; their precepts were emblems, were enigmas.

"Stir not the fire with a sword:" that is, aggravate not men who are

angry.

"Place not a lamp under a bushel:" conceal not the truth from men.

"Abstain from beans:" frequent not popular assemblies, in which votes

were given by white or black beans.

"Have no swallows about your house:" keep away babblers.

"During a tempest, worship the echo:" while civil broils endure,

withdraw into retirement.

"Never write on snow:" throw not away instruction upon weak and imbecile

minds.

"Never devour either your heart or your brains:" never give yourself up

to useless anxiety or intense study.

Such are the maxims of Pythagoras, the meaning of which is sufficiently

obvious.

The most beautiful of all emblems is that of God, whom Timæus of Locris

describes under the image of "A circle whose centre is everywhere and

circumference nowhere." Plato adopted this emblem, and Pascal inserted

it among his materials for future use, which he entitled his "Thoughts."

In metaphysics and in morals, the ancients have said everything. We

always encounter or repeat them. All modern books of this description

are merely repetitions.

The farther we advance eastward, the more prevalent and established we

find the employment of emblems and figures: but, at the same time, the

images in use are more remote from our own manners and customs.

The emblems which appear most singular to us are those which were in

frequent if not in sacred use among the Indians, Egyptians, and Syrians.

These people bore aloft in their solemn processions, and with the most

profound respect, the appropriate organs for the perpetuation of the

species--the symbols of life. We smile at such practices, and consider

these people as simple barbarians. What would they have said on seeing

us enter our temples wearing at our sides the weapons of destruction?

At Thebes, the sins of the people were represented by a goat. On the

coast of Phœnicia, a naked woman with the lower part of her body like

that of a fish was the emblem of nature.

We cannot be at all surprised if this employment of symbols extended to

the Hebrews, as they constituted a people near the Desert of Syria.

_Of Some Emblems Used by the Jewish Nation._

One of the most beautiful emblems in the Jewish books, is the following

exquisite passage in Ecclesiastes:

"When the grinders shall cease because they are few; when those that

look out of the windows shall be darkened; when the almond tree shall

flourish; when the grasshopper shall become a burden; when desire shall

fail; the silver cord be loosed; the golden bowl be fractured: and the

pitcher broken at the fountain."

The meaning is, that the aged lose their teeth; that their sight becomes

impaired; that their hair becomes white, like the blossom of the almond

tree; that their feet become like the grasshopper; that their hair drops

off like the leaves of the fir tree; that they have lost the power of

communicating life; and that it is time for them to prepare for their

long journey.

The "Song of Songs," as is well known, is a continued emblem of the

marriage of Jesus Christ with the church.

"Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth, for thy breasts are better

than wine. Let him put his left hand under my head, and embrace me with

his right hand. How beautiful art thou, my love: thy eyes are like those

of the dove; thy hair is as a flock of goats; thy lips are like a ribbon

of scarlet, and thy cheeks like pomegranates; how beautiful is thy neck!

how thy lips drop honey! my beloved put in his hand by the hole of the

door, and my bowels were moved for him; thy navel is like a round

goblet; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies; thy two

breasts are like two young roes that are twins; thy neck is like a tower

of ivory; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon; thy head is like Mount

Carmel; thy stature is that of a palm tree. I said, I will ascend the

palm tree and will gather of its fruits. What shall we do for our little

sister? she has no breasts. If she be a wall, we will build upon her a

tower of silver; if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of

cedar."

It would be necessary to translate the whole canticle, in order to see

that it is an emblem from beginning to end. The ingenious Calmet, in

particular, demonstrates that the palm tree which the lover ascended is

the cross to which our Lord Jesus Christ was condemned. It must however

be confessed, that sound and pure moral doctrine is preferable to these

allegories.

We find in the books of this people a great number of emblems and types

which shock at the present day, and excite at once our incredulity and

ridicule, but which, to the Asiatics, appear clear, natural, and

unexceptionable.

God appeared to Isaiah, the son of Amos, and said to him, "Go take thy

girdle from thy loins and thy shoes from thy feet," and he did so,

walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, "Like as my servant

Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot for three years for a sign upon

Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian

and Ethiopian prisoners, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their

hind parts uncovered, to the shame of Egypt."

This appears to us exceedingly strange: but let us inform ourselves a

little about what is passing in our own times among Turks, and Africans,

and in India, where we go to trade with so much avidity and so little

success. We shall learn that it is by no means unusual to see the

santons there absolutely naked, and not only in that state preaching to

women, but permitting them to salute particular parts of their body, yet

neither indulging or inspiring the slightest portion of licentious or

unchaste feeling. We shall see on the banks of the Ganges an

innumerable company both of men and women naked from head to foot,

extending their arms towards heaven, and waiting for the moment of an

eclipse to plunge into the river. The citizens of Paris and Rome should

not be too ready to think all the rest of the world bound down to the

same modes of living and thinking as themselves.

Jeremiah, who prophesied in the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Jerusalem,

in favor of the king of Babylon, puts chains and cords about his neck,

by order of the Lord, and sends them to the kings of Edom, Ammon, Tyre

and Sidon, by their ambassadors who had been sent to Zedekiah at

Jerusalem. He commands them to address their master in these words:

"Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel, thus shall ye say unto

your masters: I have made the earth, the men, and the beasts of burden

which are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm,

and have given it unto whom it seemed good unto me. And now have I given

all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon,

my servant, and all the beasts of the field have I given him besides,

that they may serve him. I spake also all these words to Zedekiah, king

of Judah, saying unto him, submit your neck to the yoke of the king of

Babylon, serve him, him and his people, and you shall live," etc.

Accordingly, Jeremiah was accused of betraying his king, and of

prophesying in favor of the enemy for the sake of money. It has even

been asserted that he was stoned. It is clear that the cords and chains

were the emblem of that servitude to which Jeremiah was desirous that

the nation should submit.

In a similar manner we are told by Herodotus, that one of the kings of

Scythia sent Darius a present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five

arrows. This emblem implied that, if Darius did not fly as fast as a

bird, a mouse, or a frog, he would be pierced by the arrows of the

Scythians. The allegory of Jeremiah was that of weakness; the emblem of

the Scythians was that of courage.

Thus, also, when Sextus Tarquinius consulted his father, whom we call

Tarquinius Superbus, about the policy he should adopt to the Gabii,

Tarquin, who was walking in his garden, answered only by striking off

the heads of the tallest poppies. His son caught his meaning, and put to

death the principal citizens among them. This was the emblem of tyranny.

Many learned men have been of opinion that the history of Daniel, of the

dragon, of the den of seven lions who devoured every day two sheep and

two men, and the history of the angel who transported Habakkuk by the

hair of his head to dine with Daniel in the lion's den, are nothing more

than a visible allegory, an emblem of the continual vigilance with which

God watches over his servants. But it seems to us a proof of greater

piety to believe that it is a real history, like many we find in the

Sacred Scriptures, displaying without figure and type the divine power,

and which profane minds are not permitted to explore. Let us consider

those only as genuine emblems and allegories, which are indicated to us

as such by Holy Scripture itself.

"In the thirteenth year and the fifteenth day of the fourth month, as I

was in the midst of the captives on the banks of the river Chobar, the

heavens were opened, and I saw the visions of God," etc. "The word of

the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the

Chaldæans by the river Chobar, and the hand of the Lord was upon him."

It is thus that Ezekiel begins his prophecy; and, after having seen a

fire and a whirlwind, and in the midst of the fire four living animals

resembling a man, having four faces and four wings with feet resembling

those of calves, and a wheel which was upon the earth, and which had

four parts, the four parts of the wheel going at the same time, etc.

He goes on to say, "The spirit entered into me, and placed me firm upon

my feet.... Then the Lord said unto me: 'Son of man, eat that thou

findest; eat this book, and go and speak to the children of Israel.' So

I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that book. And the spirit

entered into me and made me stand upon my feet. And he said unto me: 'Go

and shut thyself up in the midst of thy house. Son of man, these are the

chains with which thou shalt set thy face firm against it; thou shalt

be bound,'" etc. "'And thou, son of man, take a tile and place it before

thee and portray thereon the city of Jerusalem.'"

"'Take also a pan of iron, and thou shalt place it as a wall of iron

between thee and the city; thou shalt be before Jerusalem as if thou

didst besiege it; it is a sign to the house of Israel.'"

After this command God orders him to sleep three hundred and ninety days

on his left side, on account of the iniquities of the house of Judah.

Before we go further we will transcribe the words of that judicious

commentator Calmet, on this part of Ezekiel's prophecy, which is at once

a history and an allegory, a real truth and an emblem. These are the

remarks of that learned Benedictine:

"There are some who think that the whole of this occurred merely in

vision; that a man cannot continue lying so long on the same side

without a miracle; that, as the Scripture gives us no intimation that

this is a prodigy, we ought not to multiply miraculous acts without

necessity; that, if the prophet continued lying in that manner for three

hundred and ninety days, it was only during the nights; in the day he

was at liberty to attend to his affairs. But we do not see any necessity

for recurring to a miracle, nor for any circuitous explanation of the

case here stated. It is by no means impossible for a man to continue

chained and lying on his side for three hundred and ninety days. We

have every day before us cases which prove the possibility among

prisoners, sick persons, and persons deranged and chained in a state of

raving madness. Prado testifies that he saw a mad person who continued

bound and lying quite naked on his side upwards of fifteen years. If all

this had occurred only in vision, how could' the Jews of the captivity

have comprehended what Ezekiel meant to say to them? How would that

prophet have been able to execute the divine commands? We must in that

case admit likewise that he did not prepare the plan of Jerusalem, that

he did not represent the siege, that he was not bound, that he did not

eat the bread of different kinds of grain in any other than the same

way; namely, that of vision, or ideally."

We cannot but adopt the opinion of the learned Calmet, which is that of

the most respectable interpreters. It is evident that the Holy Scripture

recounts the matter as a real truth, and that such truth is the emblem,

type, and figure of another truth.

"Take unto thee wheat and barley, and beans and lentils, and millet and

vetches, and make cakes of them for as many days as thou art to sleep on

thy side. Thou shalt eat for three hundred and ninety days ... thou

shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt cover it with human ordure.

Thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread defiled."

It is evident that the Lord was desirous that the Israelites should eat

their bread defiled. It follows therefore that the bread of the prophet

must have been defiled also. This defilement was so real that Ezekiel

expressed actual horror at it. "Alas!" he exclaimed, "my life (my soul)

has not hitherto been polluted," etc. And the Lord says to him, "I allow

thee, then, cow's dung instead of man's, and with that shalt thou

prepare thy bread."

It appears, therefore, to have been absolutely essential that the food

should be defiled in order to its becoming an emblem or type. The

prophet in fact put cow-dung with his bread for three hundred and ninety

days, and the case includes at once a fact and a symbol.

_Of the Emblem of Aholah and Aholibah._

The Holy Scripture expressly declares that Aholah is the emblem of

Jerusalem. "Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; thy

father was an Amorite, and thy mother was a Hittite." The prophet then,

without any apprehension of malignant interpretations or wanton

railleries, addresses the young Aholah in the following words:

"_Ubera tua intumuerunt, et pilus tuus germinavit; et eras nuda et

confusione plena_."--"Thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair was

grown, and thou wast naked and confused."

"_Et transivi per te; et ecce tempus tuum, tempus amantium; et expandi

amictum meum super te et operui ignominiam tuam. Et juravi tibi, et

ingressus sum pactum tecum (ait Dominus Deus), et facta es mihi_."--"I

passed by and saw thee; and saw thy time was come, thy time for lovers;

and I spread my mantle over thee and concealed thy shame. And I swore

to thee, and entered into a contract with thee, and thou becamest mine."

"_Et habens fiduciam in pulchritudine tua fornicata es in nomine tuo; et

exposuisti fornicationem tuam omni transeunti, at ejus fieres_."--"And,

proud of thy beauty, thou didst commit fornication without disguise, and

hast exposed thy fornication to every passerby, to become his."

"_Et ædificavisti tibi lupanar, et fecisti tibi prostibulum in cunctis

plateis_."--"And thou hast built a high place for thyself, and a place

of eminence in every public way."

"_Et divisisti pedes tuos omni transeunti, et multiplicasti

fornicationes tuas_."--"And thou hast opened thy feet to every passerby,

and hast multiplied thy fornications."

"_Et fornicata es cum filiis Egypti vicinis tuis, magnarum carnium; et

multiplicasti fornicationem tuam ad irritandum me_."--"And thou hast

committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbors, powerful in the

flesh; and thou hast multiplied thy fornication to provoke me."

The article of Aholibah, which signifies Samaria, is much stronger and

still further removed from the propriety and decorum of modern manners

and language.

"_Denudavit quoque fornicationes suas, discooperuit ignominiam

suam_."--"And she has made bare her fornications and discovered her

shame."

"_Multiplicavit enim fornicationes suas, recordans dies adolescentiæ

suæ_."--"For she has multiplied her fornications, remembering the days

of her youth."

"_Et insanivit libidine super concubitum eorum carnes sunt ut carnes

asinorum, et sicut fluxus equorum, fluxus eorum_."--"And she has

maddened for the embraces of those whose flesh is as the flesh of asses,

and whose issue is as the issue of horses."

These images strike us as licentious and revolting. They were at that

time simply plain and ingenuous. There are numerous instances of the

like in the "Song of Songs," intended to celebrate the purest of all

possible unions. It must be attentively considered that these

expressions and images are always delivered with seriousness and

gravity, and that in no book of equally high antiquity is the slightest

jeering or raillery ever applied to the great subject of human

production. When dissoluteness is condemned, it is so in natural and

undisguised terms, but such are never used to stimulate voluptuousness

or pleasantry.

This high antiquity has not the slightest touch of similarity to the

licentiousness of Martial, Catullus, or Petronius.

_Of Hosea, and Some Other Emblems._

We cannot regard as a mere vision, as simply a figure, the positive

command given by the Lord to Hosea to take to himself a wife of

whoredoms and have by her three children. Children are not produced in

a dream. It is not in a vision that he made a contract with Gomer, the

daughter of Diblaim, by whom he had two boys and a girl. It was not in a

vision that he afterwards took to himself an adulteress by the express

order of the Lord, giving her fifteen pieces of silver and a measure and

a half of barley.

The first of these disgraced women signified Jerusalem and the second

Samaria. But the two unions with these worthless persons, the three

children, the fifteen pieces of silver, and the bushel and a half of

barley, were not the less real for having included or been intended as

an emblem.

It was not in a vision that the patriarch Salmon married the harlot

Rahab, the grandmother of David. It was not in a vision that Judah

committed incest with his daughter-in-law Thamar, from which incest

sprang David. It was not in a vision that Ruth, David's other

grandmother, placed herself in the bed with Boaz. It was not in a vision

that David murdered Uriah and committed adultery with Bathsheba, of whom

was born King Solomon. But, subsequently, all these events became

emblems and figures, after the things which they typified were

accomplished.

It is perfectly clear, from Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah, and all the Jewish

prophets, and all the Jewish books, as well as from all other books

which give us any information concerning the usages of the Chaldæans,

Persians, Phœnicians, Syrians, Indians, and Egyptians; it is, I say,

perfectly clear that their manners were very different from ours, and

that the ancient world was scarcely in a single point similar to the

modern one.

Pass from Gibraltar to Mequinez, and the decencies and decorums of life

are no longer the same; you no longer find the same ideas. Two sea

leagues have changed everything.

ENCHANTMENT.

MAGIC, CONJURATION, SORCERY, ETC.

It is not in the smallest degree probable that all those abominable

absurdities are owing, as Pluche would have us believe, to the foliage

with which the heads of Isis and Osiris were formerly crowned. What

connection can this foliage have with the art of charming serpents, with

that of resuscitating the dead, killing men by mere words, inspiring

persons with love, or changing men into beasts?

Enchantment (_incantatio_) comes, say some, from a Chaldee word, which

the Greeks translate "productive song." _Incantatio_ comes from the

Chaldee. Truly, the Bocharts are great travellers and proceed from Italy

to Mesopotamia in a twinkling! The great and learned Hebrew nation is

rapidly explored, and all sorts of books, and all sorts of usages, are

the fruits of the journey; the Bocharts are certainly not charlatans.

Is not a large portion of the absurd superstitions which have prevailed

to be ascribed to very natural causes? There are scarcely any animals

that may not be accustomed to approach at the sound of a bagpipe, or a

single horn, to take their food. Orpheus, or some one of his

predecessors, played the bagpipe better than other shepherds, or

employed singing. All the domestic animals flocked together at the sound

of his voice. It was soon supposed that bears and tigers were among the

number collected; this first step accomplished, there was no difficulty

in believing that Orpheus made stones and trees dance.

If rocks and pine-trees can be thus made to dance a ballet, it will cost

little more to build cities by harmony, and the stones will easily

arrange themselves at Amphion's song. A violin only will be wanted to

build a city, and a ram's horn to destroy it.

The charming of serpents may be attributed to a still more plausible

cause. The serpent is neither a voracious nor a ferocious animal. Every

reptile is timid. The first thing a reptile does, at least in Europe, on

seeing a man, is to hide itself in a hole, like a rabbit or a lizard.

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and

to fly from all that pursue him, except when he is armed, when he feels

his strength, and, above all, when he is in the presence of many

observers.

The serpent, far from being greedy of blood and flesh, feeds only upon

herbs, and passes a considerable time without eating at all; if he

swallows a few insects, as lizards and chameleons do, he does us a

service.

All travellers relate that there are some very large and long ones;

although we know of none such in Europe. No man or child was ever

attacked there by a large serpent or a small one. Animals attack only

what they want to eat; and dogs never bite passengers but in defence of

their masters. What could a serpent do with a little infant? What

pleasure could it derive from biting it? It could not swallow even the

fingers. Serpents do certainly bite, and squirrels also, but only when

they are injured, or are fearful of being so.

I am not unwilling to believe that there have been monsters among

serpents as well as among men. I will admit that the army of Regulus was

put under arms in Africa against a dragon; and that there has since been

a Norman there who fought against the waterspout. But it will be

granted, on the other hand, that such cases are exceedingly rare.

The two serpents that came from Tenedos for the express purpose of

devouring Laocoon, and two great lads twenty years of age, in the

presence of the whole Trojan army, form a very fine prodigy, and one

worthy of being transmitted to posterity by hexameter verses, and by

statues which represent Laocoon like a giant, and his stout boys as

pygmies.

I conceive this event to have happened in those times when a prodigious

wooden horse took cities which had been built by the gods, when rivers

flowed backward to their fountains, when waters were changed to blood,

and both sun and moon stood still on the slightest possible occasion.

Everything that has been related about serpents was considered probable

in countries in which Apollo came down from heaven to slay the serpent

Python.

Serpents were also supposed to be exceedingly sensible animals. Their

sense consists in not running so fast as we do, and in suffering

themselves to be cut in pieces.

The bite of serpents, and particularly of vipers, is not dangerous,

except when irritation has produced the fermentation of a small

reservoir of very acid humor which they have under their gums. With this

exception, a serpent is no more dangerous than an eel.

Many ladies have tamed and fed serpents, placed them on their toilets,

and wreathed them about their arms. The negroes of Guinea worship a

serpent which never injures any one.

There are many species of those reptiles, and some are more dangerous

than others in hot countries; but in general, serpents are timid and

mild animals; it is not uncommon to see them sucking the udder of a cow.

Those who first saw men more daring than themselves domesticate and feed

serpents, inducing them to come to them by a hissing sound in a similar

way to that by which we induce the approach of bees, considered them as

possessing the power of enchantment. The Psilli and Marsæ, who

familiarly handled and fondled serpents, had a similar reputation. The

apothecaries of Poitou, who take up vipers by the tail, might also, if

they chose, be respected as magicians of the first order.

The charming of serpents was considered as a thing regular and constant.

The Sacred Scripture itself, which always enters into our weaknesses,

deigned to conform itself to this vulgar idea.

"The deaf adder, which shuts its ears that it may not hear the voice of

the charmer."

"I will send among you serpents which will resist enchantments."

"The slanderer is like the serpent, which yields not to the enchanter."

The enchantment was sometimes so powerful as to make serpents burst

asunder. The natural philosophy of antiquity made this animal immortal.

If any rustic found a dead serpent in his road, some enchanter must

inevitably have deprived it of its right to immortality:

_Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis._

--VIRG. _Eclogue_ viii. 71.

Verse breaks the ground, and penetrates the brake,

And in the winding cavern splits the snake.

--DRYDEN.

_Enchantment of the Dead, or Evocation._

To enchant a dead person, to resuscitate him, or barely to evoke his

shade to speak to him, was the most simple thing in the world. It is

very common to see the dead in dreams, in which they are spoken to and

return answers. If any one has seen them during sleep, why may he not

see them when he is awake? It is only necessary to have a spirit like

the pythoness; and, to bring this spirit of python-ism into successful

operation it is only necessary that one party should be a knave and the

other a fool; and no one can deny that such _rencontres_ very frequently

occur.

The evocation of the dead was one of the sublimest mysteries of magic.

Sometimes there was made to pass before the eyes of the inquiring

devotee a large, black figure, moved by secret springs in dimness and

obscurity. Sometimes the performers, whether sorcerers or witches,

limited themselves to declaring that _they_ saw the shade which was

desired to be evoked, and their word was sufficient; this was called

necromancy. The famous witch of Endor has always been a subject of great

dispute among the fathers of the Church. The sage Theodoret, in his

sixty-second question on the Book of Kings, asserts that it is

universally the practice for the dead to appear with the head downwards,

and that what terrified the witch was Samuel's being upon his legs.

St. Augustine, when interrogated by Simplicion, replies, in the second

book of his "Questions," that there is nothing more extraordinary in a

witch's invoking a shade than in the devil's transporting Jesus Christ

through the air to the pinnacle of the temple on the top of a mountain.

Some learned men, observing that there were oracular spirits among the

Jews, have ventured to conclude that the Jews began to write only at a

late period, and that they built almost everything upon Greek fable; but

this opinion cannot be maintained.

_Of Other Sorceries._

When a man is sufficiently expert to evoke the dead by words, he may yet

more easily destroy the living, or at least threaten them with doing so,

as the physician, _malgré lui_, told Lucas that he would give him a

fever. At all events, it was not in the slightest degree doubtful that

sorcerers had the power of killing beasts; and, to insure the stock of

cattle, it was necessary to oppose sorcery to sorcery. But the ancients

can with little propriety be laughed at by us, who are ourselves

scarcely even yet extricated from the same barbarism. A hundred years

have not yet expired since sorcerers were burned all over Europe; and

even as recently as 1750, a sorceress, or witch, was burned at Wurzburg.

It is unquestionable that certain words and ceremonies will effectually

destroy a flock of sheep, if administered with a sufficient portion of

arsenic.

The "Critical, History of Superstitious Ceremonies," by Lebrun of the

Oratory, is a singular work. His object is to oppose the ridiculous

doctrine of witchcraft, and yet he is himself so ridiculous as to

believe in its reality. He pretends that Mary Bucaille, the witch, while

in prison at Valognes, _appeared_ at some leagues distance, according to

the evidence given on oath to the judge of Valognes. He relates the

famous prosecution of the shepherds of Brie, condemned in 1691, by the

Parliament of Paris, to be hanged and burned. These shepherds had been

fools enough to think themselves sorcerers, and villains enough to mix

real poisons with their imaginary sorceries.

Father Lebrun solemnly asserts that there was much of what was

"supernatural" in what they did, and that they were hanged in

consequence. The sentence of the parliament is in direct opposition to

this author's statement. "The court declares the accused duly attainted

and convicted of superstitions, impieties, sacrileges, profanations, and

poisonings."

The sentence does not state that the death of the cattle was caused by

profanations, but by poison. A man may commit sacrilege without as well

as with poison, without being a sorcerer.

Other judges, I acknowledge, sentenced the priest Ganfredi to be burned,

in the firm belief that, by the influence of the devil, he had an

illicit commerce with all his female penitents. Ganfredi himself

imagined that he was under that influence; but that was in 1611, a

period when the majority of our provincial population was very little

raised above the Caribs and negroes. Some of this description have

existed even in our own times; as, for example, the Jesuit Girard, the

ex-Jesuit Nonnotte, the Jesuit Duplessis, and the ex-Jesuit Malagrida;

but this race of imbeciles is daily hastening to extinction.

With respect to lycanthropy, that is, the transformation of men into

wolves by the power of enchantment, we may observe that a young

shepherd's having killed a wolf, and clothed himself with its skin, was

enough to excite the terror of all the old women of the district, and to

spread throughout the province, and thence through other provinces, the

notion of a man's having been changed into a wolf. Some Virgil will soon

be found to say:

_His ego sæpe lupum fieri, et se condere silvis_

_Mœrim sæpe animas imis exire sepulchris._

Smeared with these powerful juices on the plain.

He howls a wolf among the hungry train,

And oft the mighty necromancer boasts

With these to call from tombs the stalking ghosts.

--DRYDEN.

To see a man-wolf must certainly be a great curiosity; but to see human

souls must be more curious still; and did not the monks of Monte Cassino

see the soul of the holy Benedict, or Bennet? Did not the monks of Tours

see St. Martin's? and the monks of St. Denis that of Charles Martel?

_Enchantments to Kindle Love._

These were for the young. They were vended by the Jews at Rome and

Alexandria, and are at the present day sold in Asia. You will find some

of these secrets in the "_Petit Albert_"; and will become further

initiated by reading the pleading composed by Apuleius on his being

accused by a Christian, whose daughter he had married, of having

bewitched her by philtres. Emilian, his father-in-law, alleged that he

had made use of certain fishes, since, Venus having been born of the

sea, fishes must necessarily have prodigious influence in exciting women

to love.

What was generally made use of consisted of vervain, tenia, and

hippomanes; or a small portion of the secundine of a mare that had just

foaled, together with a little bird called wagtail; in Latin

_motacilla._

But Apuleius was chiefly accused of having employed shell-fish, lobster

patties, she-hedgehogs, spiced oysters, and cuttle-fish, which was

celebrated for its productiveness.

Apuleius clearly explains the real philtre, or charm, which had excited

Pudentilla's affection for him. He undoubtedly admits, in his defence,

that his wife had called him a magician. "But what," says he, "if she

had called me a consul, would that have made me one?"

The plant satyrion was considered both among the Greeks and Romans as

the most powerful of philtres. It was called _planto aphrodisia_, the

plant of Venus. That called by the Latins _eruca_ is now often added to

the former.--_Et venerem revocans eruca morantem._

A little essence of amber is frequently used. Mandragora has gone out

of fashion. Some exhausted debauchees have employed cantharides, which

strongly affect the susceptible parts of the frame, and often produce

severe and painful consequences.

Youth and health are the only genuine philtres. Chocolate was for a long

time in great celebrity with our debilitated _petits-maîtres_. But a man

may take twenty cups of chocolate without inspiring any attachment to

his person.--"_... ut amoris amabilis esto_." (Ovid, A. A. ii.,

107.)--"Wouldst thou be loved, be amiable."

END OF THE WORLD.

The greater part of the Greek philosophers held the universe to be

eternal both with respect to commencement and duration. But as to this

petty portion of the world or universe, this globe of stone and earth

and water, of minerals and vapors, which we inhabit, it was somewhat

difficult to form an opinion; it was, however, deemed very destructible.

It was even said that it had been destroyed more than once, and would be

destroyed again. Every one judged of the whole world from his own

particular country, as an old woman judges of all mankind from those in

her own nook and neighborhood.

This idea of the end of our little world and its renovation strongly

possessed the imagination of the nations under subjection to the Roman

Empire, amidst the horrors of the civil wars between Cæsar and Pompey.

Virgil, in his "Georgics" (i., 468), alludes to the general apprehension

which rilled the minds of the common people from this cause: "_Impiaque

eternam timuerunt secula noctem_."--"And impious men now dread eternal

night."

Lucan, in the following lines, expresses himself much more explicitly:

_Hos Cæsar populos, si nunc non usserit ignis_

_Uret cum terris, uret cum gurgite ponti._

_Communis mundo superest rogus...._

--PHARS. vii. v. 812, 14.

Though now thy cruelty denies a grave,

These and the world one common lot shall have;

One last appointed flame, by fate's decree,

Shall waste yon azure heavens, the earth, and sea.

--ROWE.

And Ovid, following up the observations of Lucan, says:

_Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus,_

_Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli_,

_Ardent et mundi moles operosa laboret._

--MET. i. v. 256, 58.

For thus the stern, unyielding fates decree,

That earth, air, heaven, with the capacious sea,

All shall fall victims to consuming fire,

And in fierce flames the blazing world expire.

Consult Cicero himself, the philosophic Cicero. He tells us, in his book

concerning the "Nature of the Gods," the best work perhaps of all

antiquity, unless we make an exception in favor of his treatise on human

duties, called "The Offices"; in that book, I say, he remarks:

"_Ex quo eventurum nostri putant id, de quo Panœtium addubitare

dicebant; ut ad extremum omnis mundus ignosceret, cum, humore

consumpto, neque terra ali posset, neque remearet, aer cujus ortus, aqua

omni exhausta, esse non posset; ita relinqui nihil præter ignem, a quo

rursum animante ac Deo renovatio mundi fieret; atque idem ornatus

oriretur._"

"According to the Stoics, the whole world will eventually consist only

of fire; the water being then exhausted, will leave no nourishment for

the earth; and the air, which derives its existence from water, can of

course no longer be supplied. Thus fire alone will remain, and this

fire, reanimating everything with, as it were, god-like power and

energy, will restore the world with improved beauty."

This natural philosophy of the Stoics, like that indeed of all

antiquity, is not a little absurd; it shows, however, that the

expectation of a general conflagration was universal.

Prepare, however, for greater astonishment than the errors of antiquity

can excite. The great Newton held the same opinion as Cicero. Deceived

by an incorrect experiment of Boyle, he thought that the moisture of the

globe would at length be dried up, and that it would be necessary for

God to apply His reforming hand "_manum emendatricem_." Thus we have the

two greatest men of ancient Rome and modern England precisely of the

same opinion, that at some future period fire will completely prevail

over water.

This idea of a perishing and subsequently to be renewed world was

deeply rooted in the minds of the inhabitants of Asia Minor, Syria, and

Egypt, from the time of the civil wars of the successors of Alexander.

Those of the Romans augmented the terror, upon this subject, of the

various nations which became the victims of them. They expected the

destruction of the world and hoped for a new one. The Jews, who are

slaves in Syria and scattered through every other land, partook of this

universal terror.

Accordingly, it does not appear that the Jews were at all astonished

when Jesus said to them, according to St. Matthew and St. Luke: "Heaven

and earth shall pass away." He often said to them: "The kingdom of God

is at hand." He preached the gospel of the kingdom of God.

St. Peter announces that the gospel was preached to them that were dead,

and that the end of the world drew near. "We expect," says he, "new

heavens and a new earth."

St. John, in his first Epistle, says: "There are at present many

antichrists, which shows that the last hour draws near."

St. Luke, in much greater detail, predicts the end of the world and the

last judgment. These are his words:

"There shall be signs in the moon and in the stars, roarings of the sea

and the waves; men's hearts failing them for fear shall look with

trembling to the events about to happen. The powers of heaven shall be

shaken; and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with

great power and majesty. Verily I say unto you, the present generation

shall not pass away till all this be fulfilled."

We do not dissemble that unbelievers upbraid us with this very

prediction; they want to make us blush for our faith, when we consider

that the world is still in existence. The generation, they say, is

passed away, and yet nothing at all of this is fulfilled. Luke,

therefore, ascribes language to our Saviour which he never uttered, or

we must conclude that Jesus Christ Himself was mistaken, which would be

blasphemy. But we close the mouth of these impious cavillers by

observing that this prediction, which appears so false in its literal

meaning, is true in its spirit; that the whole world meant Judæa, and

that the end of the world signified the reign of Titus and his

successors.

St. Paul expresses himself very strongly on the subject of the end of

the world in his Epistle to the Thessalonians: "We who survive, and who

now address you, shall be taken up into the clouds to meet the Lord in

the air."

According to these very words of Jesus and St. Paul, the whole world was

to have an end under Tiberius, or at latest under Nero. St. Paul's

prediction was fulfilled no more than St. Luke's.

These allegorical predictions were undoubtedly not meant to apply to the

times of the evangelists and apostles, but to some future time, which

God conceals from all mankind.

_Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi_

_Finem Dii dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios_

_Tentaris numeros. Ut melius, quicquid erit, pati!_

--HORACE i. ode xl.

Strive not Leuconoe, to pry

Into the secret will of fate,

Nor impious magic vainly try

To know our lives' uncertain date.

--FRANCIS.

It is still perfectly certain that all nations then known entertained

the expectation of the end of the world, of a new earth and a new

heaven. For more than sixteen centuries we see that donations to monkish

institutions have commenced with these words: "_Adventante mundi

vespere_," etc.--"The end of the world being at hand, I, for the good of

my soul, and to avoid being one of the number of the goats on the left

hand.... leave such and such lands to such a convent." Fear influenced

the weak to enrich the cunning.

The Egyptians fixed this grand epoch at the end of thirty-six thousand

five hundred years; Orpheus is stated to have fixed it at the distance

of a hundred and twenty thousand years.

The historian Flavius Josephus asserts that Adam, having predicted that

the world would be twice destroyed, once by water and next by fire, the

children of Seth were desirous of announcing to the future race of men

the disastrous catastrophe. They engraved astronomical observations on

two columns, one made of bricks, which should resist the fire that was

to consume the world; the other of stones, which would remain uninjured

by the water that was to drown it. But what thought the Romans, when a

few slaves talked to them about an Adam and a Seth unknown to all the

world besides? They smiled. Josephus adds that the column of stones was

to be seen in his own time in Syria.

From all that has been said, we may conclude that we know exceedingly

little of past events--that we are but ill acquainted with those

present--that we know nothing at all about the future--and that we ought

to refer everything relating to them to God, the master of those three

divisions of time and of eternity.

ENTHUSIASM.

This Greek word signifies "emotion of the bowels, internal agitation."

Was the word invented by the Greeks to express the vibrations

experienced by the nerves, the dilation and shrinking of the intestines,

the violent contractions of the heart, the precipitous course of those

fiery spirits which mount from the viscera to the brain whenever we are

strongly and vividly affected?

Or was the term "enthusiasm," after painful affection of the bowels,

first applied to the contortions of the Pythia, who, on the Delphian

tripod, admitted the inspiration of Apollo in a place apparently

intended for the receptacle of body rather than of spirit?

What do we understand by enthusiasm? How many shades are there in our

affections! Approbation, sensibility, emotion, distress, impulse,

passion, transport, insanity, rage, fury. Such are the stages through

which the miserable soul of man is liable to pass.

A geometrician attends at the representation of an affecting tragedy. He

merely remarks that it is a judicious, well-written performance. A young

man who sits next to him is so interested by the performance that he

makes no remark at all; a lady sheds tears over it; another young man is

so transported by the exhibition that to his great misfortune he goes

home determined to compose a tragedy himself. He has caught the disease

of enthusiasm.

The centurion or military tribune who considers war simply as a

profession by which he is to make his fortune, goes to battle coolly,

like a tiler ascending the roof of a house. Cæsar wept at seeing the

statue of Alexander.

Ovid speaks of love only like one who understood it. Sappho expressed

the genuine enthusiasm of the passion, and if it be true that she

sacrificed her life to it, her enthusiasm must have advanced to madness.

The spirit of party tends astonishingly to excite enthusiasm; there is

no faction that has not its "_energumens_" its devoted and possessed

partisans. An animated speaker who employs gesture in his addresses, has

in his eyes, his voice, his movements, a subtle poison which passes

with an arrow's speed into the ears and hearts of his partial hearers.

It was on this ground that Queen Elizabeth forbade any one to preach,

during six months, without an express licence under her sign manual,

that the peace of her kingdom might be undisturbed.

St. Ignatius, who possessed very warm and susceptible feelings, read the

lives of the fathers of the desert after being deeply read in romances.

He becomes, in consequence, actuated by a double enthusiasm. He

constitutes himself knight to the Virgin Mary, he performed the vigil of

arms; he is eager to fight for his lady patroness; he is favored--with

visions; the virgin appears and recommends to him her son, and she

enjoins him to give no other name to his society than that of the

"Society of Jesus."

Ignatius communicates his enthusiasm to another Spaniard of the name of

Xavier. Xavier hastens away to the Indies, of the language of which he

is utterly ignorant, thence to Japan, without knowing a word of

Japanese. That, however, is of no consequence; the flame of his

enthusiasm catches the imagination of some young Jesuits, who, at

length, make themselves masters of that language. These disciples, after

Xavier's death, entertain not the shadow of a doubt that he performed

more miracles than ever the apostles did, and that he resuscitated seven

or eight persons at the very least. In short, so epidemic and powerful

becomes the enthusiasm that they form in Japan what they denominate a

Christendom (_une Chrétienté_). This Christendom ends in a civil war, in

which a hundred thousand persons are slaughtered: the enthusiasm then is

at its highest point, fanaticism; and fanaticism has become madness.

The young fakir who fixes his eye on the tip of his nose when saying his

prayers, gradually kindles in devotional ardor until he at length

believes that if he burdens himself with chains of fifty pounds weight

the Supreme Being will be obliged and grateful to him. He goes to sleep

with an imagination totally absorbed by Brahma, and is sure to have a

sight of him in a dream. Occasionally even in the intermediate state

between sleeping and waking, sparks radiate from his eyes; he beholds

Brahma resplendent with light; he falls into ecstasies, and the disease

frequently becomes incurable.

What is most rarely to be met with is the combination of reason with

enthusiasm. Reason consists in constantly perceiving things as they

really are. He, who, under the influence of intoxication, sees objects

double is at the time deprived of reason.

Enthusiasm is precisely like wine, it has the power to excite such a

ferment in the blood-vessels, and such strong vibrations in the nerves,

that reason is completely destroyed by it. But it may also occasion only

slight agitations so as not to convulse the brain, but merely to render

it more active, as is the case in grand bursts of eloquence and more

especially in sublime poetry. Reasonable enthusiasm is the patrimony of

great poets.

This reasonable enthusiasm is the perfection of their art. It is this

which formerly occasioned the belief that poets were inspired by the

gods, a notion which was never applied to other artists.

How is reasoning to control enthusiasm? A poet should, in the first

instance, make a sketch of his design. Reason then holds the crayon. But

when he is desirous of animating his characters, to communicate to them

the different and just expressions of the passions, then his imagination

kindles, enthusiasm is in full operation and urges him on like a fiery

courser in his career. But his course has been previously traced with

coolness and judgment.

Enthusiasm is admissible into every species of poetry which admits of

sentiment; we occasionally find it even in the eclogue; witness the

following lines of Virgil (Eclogue x. v. 58):

_Jam mihi per rupes videor lucosque sonantes_

_Ire; libet Partho torquere cydonia cornu_

_Spicula; tanquam haec sint nostri medicina furoris,_

_Aut deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat!_

Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds

To thrid the thickets, or to leap the mounds.

And now, methinks, through steepy rocks I go,

And rush through sounding woods and bend the Parthian

bow:

As if with sports my sufferings I could ease,

Or by my pains the god of Love appease.

The style of epistles and satires represses enthusiasm, we accordingly

see little or nothing of it in the works of Boileau and Pope.

Our odes, it is said by some, are genuine lyrical enthusiasm, but as

they are not sung with us, they are, in fact, rather collections of

verses, adorned with ingenious reflections, than odes.

Of all modern odes that which abounds with the noblest enthusiasm, an

enthusiasm that never abates, that never falls into the bombastic or the

ridiculous, is "Timotheus, or Alexander's Feast," by Dryden. It is still

considered in England as an inimitable masterpiece, which Pope, when

attempting the same style and the same subject, could not even approach.

This ode was sung, set to music, and if the musician had been worthy of

the poet it would have been the masterpiece of lyric poesy.

The most dangerous tendency of enthusiasm in this occurs in an ode on

the birth of a prince of the bast, rant, and burlesque. A striking

example of this occurs in an ode on the birth of a prince of the blood

royal:

_Où suis-je? quel nouveau miracle_

_Tient encore mes sens enchantés_

_Quel vaste, quel pompeux spectacle_

_Frappe mes yeux épouvantés?_

_Un nouveau monde vient d'éclore_

_L'univers se reforme encore_

_Dans les abîmes du chaos;_

_Et, pour réparer ses ruines_

_Je vois des demeures divines_

_Descendre un peuple de héros._

--J.B. ROUSSEAU.

"Ode on the Birth of the Duke of Brittany."

Here we find the poet's senses enchanted and alarmed at the appearance

of a prodigy--a vast and magnificent spectacle--a new birth which is to

reform the universe and redeem it from a state of chaos, all which

means simply that a male child is born to the house of Bourbon. This is

as bad as "_Je chante les vainqueurs, des vainqueurs de la terre_."

We will avail ourselves of the present opportunity to observe that there

is a very small portion of enthusiasm in the "Ode on the Taking of

Namur."

ENVY.

We all know what the ancients said of this disgraceful passion and what

the moderns have repeated. Hesiod is the first classic author who has

spoken of it.

"The potter envies the potter, the artisan the artisan, the poor even

the poor, the musician the musician--or, if any one chooses to give a

different meaning to the word _avidos_--the poet the poet."

Long before Hesiod, Job had remarked, "Envy destroys the little-minded."

I believe Mandeville, the author of the "Fable of the Bees," is the

first who has endeavored to prove that envy is a good thing, a very

useful passion. His first reason is that envy was as natural to man as

hunger and thirst; that it may be observed in all children, as well as

in horses and dogs. If you wish your children to hate one another,

caress one more than the other; the prescription is infallible.

He asserts that the first thing two young women do when they meet

together is to discover matter for ridicule, and the second to flatter

each other.

He thinks that without envy the arts would be only moderately

cultivated, and that Raphael would never have been a great painter if he

had not been jealous of Michael Angelo.

Mandeville, perhaps, mistook emulation for envy; perhaps, also,

emulation is nothing but envy restricted within the bounds of decency.

Michael Angelo might say to Raphael, your envy has only induced you to

study and execute still better than I do; you have not depreciated me,

you have not caballed against me before the pope, you have not

endeavored to get me excommunicated for placing in my picture of the

Last Judgment one-eyed and lame persons in paradise, and pampered

cardinals with beautiful women perfectly naked in hell! No! your envy is

a laudable feeling; you are brave as well as envious; let us be good

friends.

But if the envious person is an unhappy being without talents, jealous

of merit as the poor are of the rich; if under the pressure at once of

indigence and baseness he writes "News from Parnassus," "Letters from a

Celebrated Countess," or "Literary Annals," the creature displays an

envy which is in fact absolutely good for nothing, and for which even

Mandeville could make no apology.

Descartes said: "Envy forces up the yellow bile from the lower part of

the liver, and the black bile that comes from the spleen, which diffuses

itself from the heart by the arteries." But as no sort of bile is

formed in the spleen, Descartes, when he spoke thus, deserved not to be

envied for his physiology.

A person of the name of Poet or Poetius, a theological blackguard, who

accused Descartes of atheism, was exceedingly affected by the black

bile. But he knew still less than Descartes how his detestable bile

circulated through his blood.

Madame Pernelle is perfectly right: "_Les envieux mourront, mais non

jamais l'envie_."--The envious will die, but envy never. ("_Tartuffe_,"