The reader well knows that in Spain, near the coast of Malaga, there was
discovered, in the reign of Philip II., a small community, until then
unknown, concealed in the recesses of the Alpuxarras mountains. This
chain of inaccessible rocks is intersected by luxuriant valleys, and
these valleys are still cultivated by the descendants of the Moors, who
were forced, for their own happiness, to become Christians, or at least
to appear such.
Among these Moors, as I was stating, there was, in the time of Philip, a
small society, inhabiting a valley to which there existed no access but
through caverns. This valley is situated between Pitos and Portugos. The
inhabitants of this secluded abode were almost unknown to the Moors
themselves. They spoke a language that was neither Spanish nor Arabic,
and which was thought to be derived from that of the ancient
Carthaginians.
This society had but little increased in numbers: the reason alleged for
which was that the Arabs, their neighbors, and before their time the
Africans, were in the practice of coming and taking from them the young
women.
These poor and humble, but nevertheless happy, people, had never heard
any mention of the Christian or Jewish religions; and knew very little
about that of Mahomet, not holding it in any estimation. They offered
up, from time immemorial, milk and fruits to a statue of Hercules. This
was the amount of their religion. As to other matters, they spent their
days in indolence and innocence. They were at length discovered by a
familiar of the Inquisition. The grand inquisitor had the whole of them
burned. This is the sole event of their history.
The hallowed motives of their condemnation were, that they had never
paid taxes, although, in fact, none had ever been demanded of them, and
they were totally unacquainted with money; that they were not possessed
of any Bible, although they did not understand Latin; and that no person
had been at the pains of baptizing them. They were all invested with the
san benito, and broiled to death with becoming ceremony.
It is evident that this is a specimen of the true system of government;
nothing can so completely contribute to the content, harmony, and
happiness of society.
GOURD OR CALABASH.
This fruit grows in America on the branches of a tree as high as the
tallest oaks.
Thus, Matthew Garo, who is thought so wrong in Europe for finding fault
with gourds creeping on the ground, would have been right in Mexico. He
would have been still more in the right in India, where cocoas are very
elevated. This proves that we should never hasten to conclusions. What
God has made, He has made well, no doubt; and has placed his gourds on
the ground in our climates, lest, in falling from on high, they should
break Matthew Garo's nose.
The calabash will only be introduced here to show that we should
mistrust the idea that all was made for man. There are people who
pretend that the turf is only green to refresh the sight. It would
appear, however, that it is rather made for the animals who nibble it
than for man, to whom dog-grass and trefoil are useless. If nature has
produced the trees in favor of some species, it is difficult to say to
which she has given the preference. Leaves, and even bark, nourish a
prodigious multitude of insects: birds eat their fruits, and inhabit
their branches, in which they build their industriously formed nests,
while the flocks repose under their shades.
The author of the "_Spectacle de la Nature_" pretends that the sea has a
flux and reflux, only to facilitate the going out and coming in of our
vessels. It appears that even Matthew Garo reasoned better; the
Mediterranean, on which so many vessels sail, and which only has a tide
in three or four places, destroys the opinion of this philosopher.
Let us enjoy what we have, without believing ourselves the centre and
object of all things.
GRACE.
In persons and works, grace signifies, not only that which is pleasing,
but that which is attractive; so that the ancients imagined that the
goddess of beauty ought never to appear without the graces. Beauty never
displeases, but it may be deprived of this secret charm, which invites
us to regard it, and sentimentally attracts and fills the soul. Grace
in figure, carriage, action, discourse, depends on its attractive
merit. A beautiful woman will have no grace, if her mouth be shut
without a smile, and if her eyes display no sweetness. The serious is
not always graceful, because unattractive, and approaching too near to
the severe, which repels.
A well-made man whose carriage is timid or constrained, gait precipitate
or heavy, and gestures awkward, has no gracefulness, because he has
nothing gentle or attractive in his exterior. The voice of an orator
which wants flexibility or softness is without grace.
It is the same in all the arts. Proportion and beauty may not be
graceful. It cannot be said that the pyramids of Egypt are graceful; it
cannot be said that the Colossus of Rhodes is as much so as the Venus of
Cnidus. All that is merely strong and vigorous exhibits not the charm of
grace.
It would show but small acquaintance with Michelangelo and Caravaggio to
attribute to them the grace of Albano. The sixth book of the "Æneid" is
sublime; the fourth has more grace. Some of the gallant odes of Horace
breathe gracefulness, as some of his epistles cultivate reason.
It seems, in general, that the little and pretty of all kinds are more
susceptible of grace than the large. A funeral oration, a tragedy, or a
sermon, are badly praised, if they are only honored with the epithet of
graceful.
It is not good for any kind of work to be opposed to grace, for its
opposite is rudeness, barbarity, and dryness. The Hercules of Farnese
should not have the gracefulness of the Apollo of Belvidere and of
Antinous, but it is neither rude nor clumsy. The burning of Troy is not
described by Virgil with the graces of an elegy of Tibullus: it pleases
by stronger beauties. A work, then, may be deprived of grace, without
being in the least disagreeable. The terrible, or horrible, in
description, is not to be graceful, neither should it solely affect its
opposite; for if an artist, whatever branch he may cultivate, expresses
only frightful things, and softens them not by agreeable contrasts, he
will repel.
Grace, in painting and sculpture, consists in softness of outline and
harmonious expression; and painting, next to sculpture, has grace in the
unison of parts, and of figures which animate one another, and which
become agreeable by their attributes and their expression.
Graces of diction, whether in eloquence or poetry, depend on choice of
words and harmony of phrases, and still more upon delicacy of ideas and
smiling descriptions. The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of
the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.
To have grace applies equally to persons and things. This dress, this
work, or that woman, is graceful. What is called a good grace applies to
manner alone. She presents herself with good grace. He has done that
which was expected of him with a good grace. To possess the graces:
This woman has grace in her carriage, in all that she says and does.
To obtain grace is, by a metaphor, to obtain pardon, as to grant grace
is to grant pardon. We make grace of one thing by taking away all the
rest. The commissioners took all his effects and made him a gift--a
grace--of his money. To grant graces, to diffuse graces, is the finest
privilege of the sovereignty; it is to do good by something more than
justice. To have one's good graces is usually said in relation to a
superior: to have a lady's good graces, is to be her favorite lover. To
be in grace, is said of a courtier who has been in disgrace: we should
not allow our happiness to depend on the one, nor our misery on the
other. Graces, in Greek, are "charities"; a term which signifies
amiable.
The graces, divinities of antiquity, are one of the most beautiful
allegories of the Greek mythology. As this mythology always varied
according either to the imagination of the poets, who were its
theologians, or to the customs of the people, the number, names, and
attributes of the graces often change; but it was at last agreed to fix
them as three, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne, that is to say,
sparkling, blooming, mirthful. They were always near Venus. No veil
should cover their charms. They preside over favors, concord,
rejoicings, love, and even eloquence; they were the sensible emblem of
all that can render life agreeable. They were painted dancing and
holding hands; and every one who entered their temples was crowned with
flowers. Those who have condemned the fabulous mythology should at least
acknowledge the merit of these lively fictions, which announce truths
intimately connected with the felicity of mankind.
GRACE (OF).
SECTION I.
This term, which signifies favor or privilege, is employed in this sense
by theologians. They call grace a particular operation of God on
mankind, intended to render them just and happy. Some have admitted
universal grace, that which God gives to all men, though mankind,
according to them, with the exception of a very small number, will be
delivered to eternal flames: others admit grace towards Christians of
their communion only; and lastly, others only for the elect of that
communion.
It is evident that a general grace, which leaves the universe in vice,
error, and eternal misery, is not a grace, a favor, or privilege, but a
contradiction in terms.
Particular grace, according to theologians, is either in the first place
"sufficing," which if resisted, suffices not--resembling a pardon given
by a king to a criminal, who is nevertheless delivered over to the
punishment; or "efficacious" when it is not resisted, although it _may
be_ resisted; in this case, they just resemble famished guests to whom
are presented delicious viands, of which they will surely eat, though,
in general, they may be supposed at liberty not to eat; or "necessary,"
that is, unavoidable, being nothing more than the chain of eternal
decrees and events. We shall take care not to enter into the long and
appalling details, subtleties, and sophisms, with which these questions
are embarrassed. The object of this dictionary is not to be the vain
echo of vain disputes.
St. Thomas calls grace a substantial form, and the Jesuit Bouhours names
it a _je ne sais quoi_; this is perhaps the best definition which has
ever been given of it.
If the theologians had wanted a subject on which to ridicule Providence,
they need not have taken any other than that which they have chosen. On
one side the Thomists assure us that man, in receiving efficacious
grace, is not free in the compound sense, but that he is free in the
divided sense; on the other, the Molinists invent the medium doctrine of
God and congruity, and imagine exciting, preventing, concomitant, and
co-operating grace.
Let us quit these bad but seriously constructed jokes of the
theologians; let us leave their books, and each consult his common
sense; when he will see that all these reasoners have sagaciously
deceived themselves, because they have reasoned upon a principle
evidently false. They have supposed that God acts upon particular views;
now, an eternal God, without general, immutable, and eternal laws, is
an imaginary being, a phantom, a god of fable.
Why, in all religions on which men pique themselves on reasoning, have
theologians been forced to admit this grace which they do not
comprehend? It is that they would have salvation confined to their own
sect, and further, they would have this salvation divided among those
who are the most submissive to themselves. These particular theologians,
or chiefs of parties, divide among themselves. The Mussulman doctors
entertain similar opinions and similar disputes, because they have the
same interest to actuate them; but the universal theologian, that is to
say, the true philosopher, sees that it is contradictory for nature to
act on particular or single views; that it is ridiculous to imagine God
occupying Himself in forcing one man in Europe to obey Him, while He
leaves all the Asiatics intractable; to suppose Him wrestling with
another man who sometimes submits, and sometimes disarms Him, and
presenting to another a help, which is nevertheless useless. Such grace,
considered in a true point of view, is an absurdity. The prodigious mass
of books composed on this subject is often an exercise of intellect, but
always the shame of reason.
SECTION II.
All nature, all that exists, is the grace of God; He bestows on all
animals the grace of form and nourishment. The grace of growing seventy
feet high is granted to the fir, and refused to the reed. He gives to
man the grace of thinking, speaking, and knowing him; He grants me the
grace of not understanding a word of all that Tournelli, Molina, and
Soto, have written on the subject of grace.
The first who has spoken of efficacious and gratuitous grace is, without
contradiction, Homer. This may be astonishing to a bachelor of theology,
who knows no author but St. Augustine; but, if he read the third book of
the "Iliad," he will see that Paris says to his brother Hector: "If the
gods have given you valor, and me beauty, do not reproach me with the
presents of the beautiful Venus; no gift of the gods is despicable--it
does not depend upon man to obtain them."
Nothing is more positive than this passage. If we further remark that
Jupiter, according to his pleasure, gave the victory sometimes to the
Greeks, and at others to the Trojans, we shall see a new proof that all
was done by grace from on high. Sarpedon, and afterwards Patroclus, are
barbarians to whom by turns grace has been wanting.
There have been philosophers who were not of the opinion of Homer. They
have pretended that general Providence does not immediately interfere
with the affairs of particular individuals; that it governs all by
universal laws; that Thersites and Achilles were equal before it, and
that neither Chalcas nor Talthybius ever had versatile or congruous
graces.
According to these philosophers, the dog-grass and the oak, the mite and
the elephant, man, the elements and stars, obey invariable laws, which
God, as immutable, has established from all eternity.
SECTION III.
If one were to come from the bottom of hell, to say to us on the part of
the devil--Gentlemen, I must inform you that our sovereign lord has
taken all mankind for his share, except a small number of people who
live near the Vatican and its dependencies--we should all pray of this
deputy to inscribe us on the list of the privileged; we should ask him
what we must do to obtain this grace.
If he were to answer, You cannot merit it, my master has made the list
from the beginning of time; he has only listened to his own pleasure, he
is continually occupied in making an infinity of _pots-de-chambre_ and
some dozen gold vases; if you are _pots-de-chambre_ so much the worse
for you.
At these fine words we should use our pitchforks to send the ambassador
back to his master. This is, however, what we have dared to impute to
God---to the eternal and sovereignly good being!
Man has been always reproached with having made God in his own image,
Homer has been condemned for having transported all the vices and
follies of earth into heaven. Plato, who has thus justly reproached him,
has not hesitated to call him a blasphemer; while we, a hundred times
more thoughtless, hardy, and blaspheming than this Greek, who did not
understand conventional language, devoutly accuse God of a thing of
which we have never accused the worst of men.
It is said that the king of Morocco, Muley Ismael, had five hundred
children. What would you say if a marabout of Mount Atlas related to you
that the wise and good Muley Ismael, dining with his family, at the
close of the repast, spoke thus:
"I am Muley Ismael, who has forgotten you for my glory, for I am very
glorious. I love you very tenderly, I shelter you as a hen covers her
chickens; I have decreed that one of my youngest children shall have the
kingdom of Tafilet, and that another shall possess Morocco; and for my
other dear children, to the number of four hundred and ninety-eight, I
order that one-half shall be tortured, and the other half burned, for I
am the Lord Muley Ismael."
You would assuredly take the marabout for the greatest fool that Africa
ever produced; but if three or four thousand marabouts, well entertained
at your expense, were to repeat to you the same story, what would you
do? Would you not be tempted to make them fast upon bread and water
until they recovered their senses?
You will allege that my indignation is reasonable enough against the
supralapsarians, who believe that the king of Morocco begot these five
hundred children only for his glory; and that he had always the
intention to torture and burn them, except two, who were destined to
reign.
But I am wrong, you say, against the infralapsarians, who avow that it
was not the first intention of Muley Ismael to cause his children to
perish; but that, having foreseen that they would be of no use, he
thought he should be acting as a good father in getting rid of them by
torture and fire.
Ah, supralapsarians, infralapsarians, free-gracians, sufficers,
efficacians, jansenists, and molinists become men, and no longer trouble
the earth with such absurd and abominable fooleries.
SECTION IV.
Holy advisers of modern Rome, illustrious and infallible theologians, no
one has more respect for your divine decisions than I; but if Paulus
milius, Scipio, Cato, Cicero, Cæsar, Titus, Trajan, or Marcus Aurelius,
revisited that Rome to which they formerly did such credit, you must
confess that they would be a little astonished at your decisions on
grace. What would they say if they heard you speak of healthful grace
according to St. Thomas, and medicinal grace according to Cajetan; of
exterior and interior grace, of free, sanctifying, co-operating, actual,
habitual, and efficacious grace, which is sometimes inefficacious; of
the sufficing which sometimes does not suffice, of the versatile and
congruous--would they really comprehend it more than you and I?
What need would these poor people have of your instructions? I fancy I
hear them say: "Reverend fathers, you are terrible genii; we foolishly
thought that the Eternal Being never conducted Himself by particular
laws like vile human beings, but by general laws, eternal like Himself.
No one among us ever imagined that God was like a senseless master, who
gives an estate to one slave and refuses food to another; who orders one
with a broken arm to knead a loaf, and a cripple to be his courier."
All is grace on the part of God; He has given to the globe we inhabit
the grace of form; to the trees the grace of making them grow; to
animals that of feeding them; but will you say, because one wolf finds
in his road a lamb for his supper, while another is dying with hunger,
that God has given the first wolf a particular grace? Is it a preventive
grace to cause one oak to grow in preference to another in which sap is
wanting? If throughout nature all being is submitted to general laws,
how can a single species of animals avoid conforming to them?
Why should the absolute master of all be more occupied in directing the
interior of a single man than in conducting the remainder of entire
nature? By what caprice would He change something in the heart of a
Courlander or a Biscayan, while He changes nothing in the general laws
which He has imposed upon all the stars.
What a pity to suppose that He is continually making, defacing, and
renewing our sentiments! And what audacity in us to believe ourselves
excepted from all beings! And further, is it not only for those who
confess that these changes are imagined? A Savoyard, a Bergamask, on
Monday, will have the grace to have a mass said for twelve sous; on
Tuesday he will go to the tavern and have no grace; on Wednesday he will
have a co-operating grace, which will conduct him to confession, but he
will not have the efficacious grace of perfect contrition; on Thursday
there will be a sufficing grace which will not suffice, as has been
already said. God will labor in the head of this Bergamask--sometimes
strongly, sometimes weakly, while the rest of the earth will no way
concern Him! He will not deign to meddle with the interior of the
Indians and Chinese! If you possess a grain of reason, reverend fathers,
do you not find this system prodigiously ridiculous?
Poor, miserable man! behold this oak which rears its head to the clouds,
and this reed which bends at its feet; you do not say that efficacious
grace has been given to the oak and withheld from the reed. Raise your
eyes to heaven; see the eternal Demiourgos creating millions of worlds,
which gravitate towards one another by general and eternal laws. See the
same light reflected from the sun to Saturn, and from Saturn to us; and
in this grant of so many stars, urged onward in their rapid course; in
this general obedience of all nature, dare to believe, if you can, that
God is occupied in giving a versatile grace to Sister Theresa, or a
concomitant one to Sister Agnes.
Atom--to which another foolish atom has said that the Eternal has
particular laws for some atoms of thy neighborhood; that He gives His
grace to that one and refuses it to this; that such as had not grace
yesterday shall have it to-morrow--repeat not this folly. God has made
the universe, and creates not new winds to remove a few straws in one
corner of the universe. Theologians are like the combatants in Homer,
who believed that the gods were sometimes armed for and sometimes
against them. Had Homer not been considered a poet, he would be deemed a
blasphemer.
It is Marcus Aurelius who speaks, and not I; for God, who inspires you,
has given me grace to believe all that you say, all that you have said,
and all that you will say.
GRAVE--GRAVITY.
Grave, in its moral meaning, always corresponds with its physical one;
it expresses something of weight; thus, we say--a person, an author, or
a maxim of weight, for a grave person, author, or maxim. The grave is to
the serious what the lively is to the agreeable. It is one degree more
of the same thing, and that degree a considerable one. A man may be
serious by temperament, and even from want of ideas. He is grave, either
from a sense of decorum, or from having ideas of depth and importance,
which induce gravity. There is a difference between being grave and
being a grave man. It is a fault to be unseasonably grave. He who is
grave in society is seldom much sought for; but a grave man is one who
acquires influence and authority more by his real wisdom than his
external carriage.
_Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem_
_Conspexere, silent, adrectisque auribus adstant._
--VIRGIL'S _Æneid_, i. 151.
If then some grave and pious man appear,
They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear.
--DRYDEN.
A decorous air should be always preserved, but a grave air is becoming
only in the function of some high and important office, as, for example,
in council. When gravity consists, as is frequently the case, only in
the exterior carriage, frivolous remarks are delivered with a pompous
solemnity, exciting at once ridicule and aversion. We do not easily
pardon those who wish to impose upon us by this air of consequence and
self-sufficiency.
The duke de La Rochefoucauld said "Gravity is a mysteriousness of body
assumed in order to conceal defects of mind." Without investigating
whether the phrase "mysteriousness of body" is natural and judicious, it
is sufficient to observe that the remark is applicable to all who affect
gravity, but not to those who merely exhibit a gravity suitable to the
office they hold, the place where they are, or the business in which
they are engaged.
A grave author is one whose opinions relate to matters obviously
disputable. We never apply the term to one who has written on subjects
which admit no doubt or controversy. It would be ridiculous to call
Euclid and Archimedes grave authors.
Gravity is applicable to style. Livy and de Thou have written with
gravity. The same observations cannot with propriety be applied to
Tacitus, whose object was brevity, and who has displayed malignity;
still less can it be applied to Cardinal de Retz, who sometimes infuses
into his writings a misplaced gayety, and sometimes even forgets
decency.
The grave style declines all sallies of wit or pleasantry; if it
sometimes reaches the sublime, if on any particular occasion it is
pathetic, it speedily returns to the didactic wisdom and noble
simplicity which habitually characterizes it; it possesses strength
without daring. Its greatest difficulty is to avoid monotony.
A grave affair (_affaire_), a grave case (_cas_), is used concerning a
criminal rather than a civil process. A grave disease implies danger.
GREAT--GREATNESS.
_Of the Meaning of These Words._
Great is one of those words which are most frequently used in a moral
sense, and with the least consideration and judgment. Great man, great
genius, great captain, great philosopher, great poet; we mean by this
language "one who has far exceeded ordinary limits." But, as it is
difficult to define those limits, the epithet "great" is often applied
to those who possess only mediocrity.
This term is less vague and doubtful when applied to material than to
moral subjects. We know what is meant by a great storm, a great
misfortune, a great disease, great property, great misery.
The term "large" (_gros_) is sometimes used with respect to subjects of
the latter description, that is, material ones, as equivalent to great,
but never with respect to moral subjects. We say large property for
great wealth, but not a large captain for a great captain, or a large
minister for a great minister. Great financier means a man eminently
skilful in matters of national finance; but _gros_ financier expresses
merely a man who has become wealthy in the department of finance.
The great man is more difficult to be defined than the great artist. In
an art or profession, the man who has far distanced his rivals, or who
has the reputation of having done so, is called great in his art, and
appears, therefore, to have required merit of only one description in
order to obtain this eminence; but the great man must combine different
species of merit. Gonsalvo, surnamed the Great Captain, who observed
that "the web of honor was coarsely woven," was never called a great
man. It is more easy to name those to whom this high distinction should
be refused than those to whom it should be granted. The denomination
appears to imply some great virtues. All agree that Cromwell was the
most intrepid general, the most profound statesman, the man best
qualified to conduct a party, a parliament, or an army, of his day; yet
no writer ever gives him the title of great man; because, although he
possessed great qualities, he possessed not a single great virtue.
This title seems to fall to the lot only of the small number of men who
have been distinguished at once by virtues, exertions, and success.
Success is essential, because the man who is always unfortunate is
supposed to be so by his own fault.
Great (grand), by itself, expresses some dignity. In Spain it is a high
and most distinguishing appellative (_grandee_) conferred by the king on
those whom he wishes to honor. The grandees are covered in the presence
of the king, either before speaking to him or after having spoken to
him, or while taking their seats with the rest.
Charles the Fifth conferred the privileges of grandeeship on sixteen
principal noblemen. That emperor himself afterwards granted the same
honors to many others. His successors, each in his turn, have added to
the number. The Spanish grandees have long claimed to be considered of
equal rank and dignity with the electors and the princes of Italy. At
the court of France they have the same honors as peers.
The title of "great" has been always given, in France, to many of the
chief officers of the crown--as great seneschal, great master, great
chamberlain, great equerry, great pantler, great huntsman, great
falconer. These titles were given them to distinguish their pre-eminence
above the persons serving in the same departments under them. The
distinction is not given to the constable, nor to the chancellor, nor to
the marshals, although the constable is the chief of all the household
officers, the chancellor the second person in the state, and the marshal
the second officer in the army. The reason obviously is, that they had
no deputies, no vice-constables, vice-marshals, vice-chancellors, but
officers under another denomination who executed their orders, while the
great steward, great chamberlain, and great equerry, etc., had stewards,
chamberlains, and equerries under them.
Great (grand) in connection with _seigneur_, "great lord," has a
signification more extensive and uncertain. We give this title of
"_grand seigneur_" (seignor) to the Turkish sultan, who assumes that of
pasha, to which the expression grand seignor does not correspond. The
expression "_un grand_," "great man," is used in speaking of a man of
distinguished birth, invested with dignities, but it is used only by the
common people. A person of birth or consequence never applies the term
to any one. As the words "great lord" (_grand seigneur_) are commonly
applied to those who unite birth, dignity, and riches, poverty seems to
deprive a man of the right to it, or at least to render it inappropriate
or ridiculous. Accordingly, we say a poor gentleman, but not a poor
grand seigneur.
Great (grand) is different from mighty (_puissant_). A man may at the
same time be both one and the other, but _puissant_ implies the
possession of some office of power and consequence. "Grand" indicates
more show and less reality; the "puissant" commands, the "grand"
possesses honors.
There is greatness (grandeur) in mind, in sentiments, in manners, and in
conduct. The expression is not used in speaking of persons in the
middling classes of society, but only of those who, by their rank, are
bound to show nobility and elevation. It is perfectly true that a man of
the most obscure birth and connections may have more greatness of mind
than a monarch. But it would be inconsistent with the usual phraseology
to say, "that merchant" or "that farmer acted greatly" (_avec
grandeur_); unless, indeed, in very particular circumstances, and
placing certain characters in striking opposition, we should, for
example, make such a remark as the following: "The celebrated merchant
who entertained Charles the Fifth in his own house, and lighted a fire
of cinnamon wood with that prince's bond to him for fifty thousand
ducats, displayed more greatness of soul than the emperor."
The title of "greatness" (grandeur) was formerly given to various
persons possessing stations of dignity. French clergymen, when writing
to bishops, still call them "your greatness." Those titles, which are
lavished by sycophancy and caught at by vanity, are now little used.
Haughtiness is often mistaken for greatness (grandeur). He who is
ostentatious of greatness displays vanity. But one becomes weary and
exhausted with writing about greatness. According to the lively remark
of Montaigne, "we cannot obtain it, let us therefore take our revenge by
abusing it."
GREEK.
_Observations Upon the Extinction of the Greek Language at Marseilles._
It is exceedingly strange that, as Marseilles was founded by a Greek
colony, scarcely any vestige of the Greek language is to be found in
Provence Languedoc, or any district of France; for we cannot consider as
Greek the terms which were taken, at a comparatively modern date, from
the Latins, and which had been adopted by the Romans themselves from the
Greeks so many centuries before. We received those only at second hand.
We have no right to say that we abandoned the word _Got_ for that of
_Theos_, rather than that of _Deus_, from which, by a barbarous
termination, we have made _Dieu_.
It is clear that the Gauls, having received the Latin language with the
Roman laws, and having afterwards received from those same Romans the
Christian religion, adopted from them all the terms which were connected
with that religion. These same Gauls did not acquire, until a late
period, the Greek terms which relate to medicine, anatomy, and surgery.
After deducting all the words originally Greek which we have derived
through the Latin, and all the anatomical and medical terms which were,
in comparison, so recently acquired, there is scarcely anything left;
for surely, to derive "_abréger_" from "_brakus_," rather than from
"_abreviare_"; "_acier_" from "_axi_" rather than from "_acies_";
"_acre_" from "_agros_," rather than from "_ager_"; and "_aile_" from
"_ily_" rather than from "_ala_"--this, I say, would surely be perfectly
ridiculous.
Some have even gone so far as to say that "omelette" comes from
"_omeilaton_" because "_meli_" in Greek signifies honey, and "_oon_" an
egg. In the "Garden of Greek Roots" there is a more curious derivation
still; it is pretended that "_diner_" (dinner) comes from "_deipnein_,"
which signifies supper.
As some may be desirous of possessing a list of the Greek words which
the Marseilles colony may have introduced into the language of the
Gauls, independently of those which came through the Romans, we present
the following one:
Aboyer, perhaps from _bauzein_.
Affre, affreux, from _afronos_.
Agacer, perhaps from _anaxein_.
Alali, a Greek war-cry.
Babiller, perhaps from _babazo_.
Balle, from _ballo_.
Bas, from _batys_.
Blesser, from the aorist of _blapto_.
Bouteille, from _bouttis_.
Bride, from _bryter_.
Brique, from _bryka_.
Coin, from _gonia_.
Colère, from _chole_.
Colle, from _colla_.
Couper, from _cop to_.
Cuisse, perhaps from _ischis_.
Entraille, from _entera_.
Ermite, from _eremos_.
Fier, from _fiaros_.
Gargarizer, from _gargarizein_.
Idiot, from _idiotes_.
Maraud, from _miaros_.
Moquer, from _mokeuo_.
Moustache, from _mustax_.
Orgueil, from _orge_.
Page, from _pais_.
Siffler, perhaps from _siffloo_.
Tuer, _thuein_.
I am astonished to find so few words remaining of a language spoken at
Marseilles, in the time of Augustus, in all its purity; and I am
particularly astonished to find the greater number of the Greek words
preserved in Provence, signifying things of little or no utility, while
those used to express things of the first necessity and importance are
utterly lost. We have not a single one remaining that signifies land,
sea, sky, the sun, the moon, rivers, or the principal parts of the human
body; the words used for which might have been expected to be
transmitted down from the beginning through every succeeding age.
Perhaps we must attribute the cause of this to the Visigoths, the
Burgundians, and the Franks; to the horrible barbarism of all those
nations which laid waste the Roman Empire, a barbarism of which so many
traces yet remain.
GUARANTEE.
A guarantee is a pledge by which a person renders himself responsible to
another for something, and binds himself to secure him in the enjoyment
of it. The word (_garant_) is derived from the Celtic and Teutonic
"warrant." In all the words which we have retained from those ancient
languages we have changed the _w_ into _g_. Among the greater number of
the nations of the North "warrant" still signifies assurance, guaranty;
and in this sense it means, in English, an order of the king, as
signifying the pledge of the king. When in the middle ages kings
concluded treaties, they were guaranteed on both sides by a considerable
number of knights, who bound themselves by oath to see that the treaty
was observed, and even, when a superior education qualified them to do
so, which sometimes happened, signed their names to it. When the emperor
Frederick Barbarossa ceded so many rights to Pope Alexander III. at the
celebrated congress of Venice, in 1117, the emperor put his seal to the
instrument which the pope and cardinals signed. Twelve princes of the
empire guaranteed the treaty by an oath upon the gospel; but none of
them signed it. It is not said that the doge of Venice guaranteed that
peace which was concluded in his palace. When Philip Augustus made peace
in 1200 with King John of England, the principal barons of France and
Normandy swore to the due observance of it, as cautionary or
guaranteeing parties. The French swore that they would take arms against
their king if he violated his word, and the Normans, in like manner, to
oppose their sovereign if he did not adhere to his. One of the
constables of the Montmorency family, after a negotiation with one of
the earls of March, in 1227, swore to the observance of the treaty upon
the soul of the king.
The practice of guaranteeing the states of a third party was of great
antiquity, although under a different name. The Romans in this manner
guaranteed the possessions of many of the princes of Asia and Africa, by
taking them under their protection until they secured to themselves the
possession of the territories thus protected. We must regard as a mutual
guaranty the ancient alliance between France and Castile, of king to
king, kingdom to kingdom, and man to man.
We do not find any treaty in which the guaranty of the states of a third
party is expressly stipulated for before that which was concluded
between Spain and the states-general in 1609, by the mediation of Henry
IV. He procured from Philip III., king of Spain, the recognition of the
United Provinces as free and sovereign states. He signed the guaranty of
this sovereignty of the seven provinces, and obtained the signature of
the same instrument from the king of Spain; and the republic
acknowledged that it owed its freedom to the interference of the French
monarch. It is principally within our own times that treaties of
guaranty have become comparatively frequent. Unfortunately these
engagements have occasionally produced ruptures and war; and it is
clearly ascertained that the best of all possible guaranties is power.
GREGORY VII.
Bayle himself, while admitting that Gregory was the firebrand of Europe,
concedes to him the denomination of a great man. "That old Rome," says
he, "which plumed itself upon conquests and military virtue, should have
brought so many other nations under its dominion, redounds, according to
the general maxims of mankind, to her credit and glory; but, upon the
slightest reflection, can excite little surprise. On the other hand, it
is a subject of great surprise to see new Rome, which pretended to value
itself only on an apostolic ministry, possessed of an authority under
which the greatest monarchs have been constrained to bend. Caron may
observe, with truth, that there is scarcely a single emperor who has
opposed the popes without feeling bitter cause to regret his resistance.
Even at the present day the conflicts of powerful princes with the court
of Rome almost always terminate in their confusion."
I am of a totally different opinion from Bayle. There will probably be
many of a different one from mine. I deliver it however with freedom,
and let him who is willing and able refute it.
1. The differences of the princes of Orange and the seven provinces with
Rome did not terminate in their confusion; and Bayle, who, while at
Amsterdam, could set Rome at defiance, was a happy illustration of the
contrary.
The triumphs of Queen Elizabeth, of Gustavus Vasa in Sweden, of the
kings of Denmark, of all the princes of the north of Germany, of the
finest part of Helvetia, of the single and small city of Geneva--the
triumphs, I say, of all these over the policy of the Roman court are
perfectly satisfactory testimonies that it may be easily and
successfully resisted, both in affairs of religion and government.
2. The sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles the Fifth; the pope
(Clement VII.) a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo; Louis XIV.
compelling Pope Alexander VII. to ask his pardon, and erecting even in
Rome itself a monument of the pope's submission; and, within our own
times, the easy subversion of that steady, and apparently most
formidable support of the papal power, the society of Jesuits in Spain,
in France, in Naples, in Goa, and in Paraguay--all this furnishes
decisive evidence, that, when potent princes are in hostility with Rome,
the quarrel is not terminated in their confusion; they may occasionally
bend before the storm, but they will not eventually be overthrown.
When the popes walked on the heads of kings, when they conferred crowns
by a parchment bull, it appears to me, that at this extreme height of
their power and grandeur they did no more than the caliphs, who were the
successors of Mahomet, did in the very period of their decline. Both of
them, in the character of priests, conferred the investiture of empires,
in solemn ceremony, on the most powerful of contending parties.
3. Maimbourg says: "What no pope ever did before, Gregory VIII. did,
depriving Henry IV. of his dignity of emperor, and of his kingdoms of
Germany and Italy."
Maimbourg is mistaken. Pope Zachary had, long before that, placed a
crown on the head of the Austrasian Pepin, who usurped the kingdom of
the Franks; and Pope Leo III. had declared the son of that Pepin emperor
of the West, and thereby deprived the empress Irene of the whole of that
empire; and from that time, it must be admitted, there has not been a
single priest of the Romish church who has not imagined that his bishop
enjoyed the disposal of all crowns.
This maxim was always turned to account when it was possible to be so.
It was considered as a consecrated weapon, deposited in the sacristy of
St. John of Lateran, which might be drawn forth in solemn and impressive
ceremony on every occasion that required it. This prerogative is so
commanding; it raises to such a height the dignity of an exorcist born
at Velletri or Cività Vecchia, that if Luther, Œcolampadius, John
Calvin, and all the prophets of the Cévennes, had been natives of any
miserable village near Rome, and undergone the tonsure there, they would
have supported that church with the same rage which they actually
manifested for its destruction.
4. Everything, then, depends on the time and place of a man's birth, and
the circumstances by which he is surrounded. Gregory VII. was born in an
age of barbarism, ignorance, and superstition; and he had to deal with a
young, debauched, inexperienced emperor, deficient in money, and whose
power was contested by all the powerful lords of Germany.
We cannot believe, that, from the time of the Austrasian Charlemagne,
the Roman people ever paid very willing obedience to Franks or
Teutonians: they hated them as much as the genuine old Romans would have
hated the Cimbri, if the Cimbri had obtained dominion in Italy. The
Othos had left behind them in Rome a memory that was execrated, because
they had enjoyed great power there; and, after the time of the Othos,
Europe it is well known became involved in frightful anarchy.
This anarchy was not more effectually restrained under the emperors of
the house of Franconia. One-half of Germany was in insurrection against
Henry IV. The countess Mathilda, grand duchess, his cousin-german, more
powerful than himself in Italy, was his mortal enemy. She possessed,
either as fiefs of the empire, or as allodial property, the whole duchy
of Tuscany, the territory of Cremona, Ferrara, Mantua, and Parma; a part
of the Marches of Ancona, Reggio, Modena, Spoleto, and Verona; and she
had rights, that is to say pretensions, to the two Burgundies; for the
imperial chancery claimed those territories, according to its regular
practice of claiming everything.
We admit, that Gregory VII. would have been little less than an idiot
had he not exerted his strongest efforts to secure a complete influence
over this powerful princess; and to obtain, by her means, a point of
support and protection against the Germans. He became her director, and,
after being her director, her heir.
I shall not, in this place, examine whether he was really her lover, or
whether he only pretended to be so; or whether his enemies merely
pretended it; or whether, in his idle moments, the assuming and ardent
little director did not occasionally abuse the influence he possessed
with his penitent, and prevail over a feeble and capricious woman. In
the course of human events nothing can be more natural or common; but as
usually no registers are kept of such cases; as those interesting
intimacies between the directors and directed do not take place before
witnesses, and as Gregory has been reproached with this imputation only
by his enemies, we ought not to confound accusation with proof. It is
quite enough that Gregory claimed the whole of his penitent's property.
5. The donation which he procured to be made to himself by the countess
Mathilda, in the year 1077, is more than suspected. And one proof that
it is not to be relied upon is that not merely was this deed never
shown, but that, in a second deed, the first is stated to have been
lost. It was pretended that the donation had been made in the fortress
of Canossa, and in the second act it is said to have been made at Rome.
These circumstances may be considered as confirming the opinion of some
antiquaries, a little too scrupulous, who maintain that out of a
thousand grants made in those times--and those times were of long
duration--there are more than nine hundred evidently counterfeit.
There have been two sorts of usurpers in our quarter of the world,
Europe--robbers and forgers.
6. Bayle, although allowing the title of Great to Gregory, acknowledges
at the same time that this turbulent man disgraced his heroism by his
prophecies. He had the audacity to create an emperor, and in that he
did well, as the emperor Henry IV. had made a pope. Henry deposed him,
and he deposed Henry. So far there is nothing to which to object--both
sides are equal. But Gregory took it into his head to turn prophet; he
predicted the death of Henry IV. for the year 1080; but Henry IV.
conquered, and the pretended emperor Rudolph was defeated and slain in
Thuringia by the famous Godfrey of Bouillon, a man more truly great than
all the other three. This proves, in my opinion, that Gregory had more
enthusiasm than talent.
I subscribe with all my heart to the remark of Bayle, that "when a man
undertakes to predict the future, he is provided against everything by a
face of brass, and an inexhaustible magazine of equivocations." But your
enemies deride your equivocations; they also have a face of brass like
yourself; and they expose you as a knave, a braggart, and a fool.
7. Our great man ended his public career with witnessing the taking of
Rome by assault, in the year 1083. He was besieged in the castle, since
called St. Angelo, by the same emperor Henry IV., whom he had dared to
dispossess, and died in misery and contempt at Salerno, under the
protection of Robert Guiscard the Norman.
I ask pardon of modern Rome, but when I read the history of the Scipios,
the Catos, the Pompeys, and the Cæsars, I find a difficulty in ranking
with them a factious monk who was made a pope under the name of Gregory
VII.
But our Gregory has obtained even a yet finer title; he has been made a
saint, at least at Rome. It was the famous cardinal Coscia who effected
this canonization under Pope Benedict XIII. Even an office or service of
St. Gregory VII. was printed, in which it was said, that that saint
"absolved the faithful from the allegiance which they had sworn to their
emperor."
Many parliaments of the kingdom were desirous of having this legend
burned by the executioner: but Bentivoglio, the nuncio--who kept one of
the actresses at the opera, of the name of Constitution, as his
mistress, and had by her a daughter called la Legende; a man otherwise
extremely amiable, and a most interesting companion--procured from the
ministry a mitigation of the threatened storm; and, after passing
sentence of condemnation on the legend of St. Gregory, the hostile party
were contented to suppress it and to laugh at it.