Chapter 34

The false idea which a title conveys is alike prejudicial to the author and the reader. Titles are generally too prodigal of their promises, and their authors are contemned; but the works of modest authors, though they present more than they promise, may fail of attracting notice by their extreme simplicity. In either case, a collector of books is prejudiced; he is induced to collect what merits no attention, or he passes over those valuable works whose titles may not happen to be interesting. It is related of Pinelli, the celebrated collector of books, that the booksellers permitted him to remain hours, and sometimes days, in their shops to examine books before he purchased. He was desirous of not injuring his precious collection by useless acquisitions; but he confessed that he sometimes could not help being dazzled by magnificent titles, nor being mistaken by the simplicity of others, which had been chosen by the modesty of their authors. After all, many authors are really neither so vain, nor so honest, as they appear; for magnificent, or simple titles, have often been given from the difficulty of forming any others.

It is too often with the Titles of Books, as with those painted representations exhibited by the keepers of wild beasts; where, in general, the picture itself is made more striking and inviting to the eye, than the inclosed animal is always found to be.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: Religious parody seems to have carried no sense of impropriety with it to the minds of the men of the 15th and 16th centuries. Luther was an adept in this art, and the preachers who followed him continued the practice. The sermons of divines in the following century often sought an attraction by quaint titles, such as--"Heaven ravished"--"The Blacksmith, a sermon preached at Whitehall before the King," 1606. Beloe, in his _Anecdotes of Literature_, vol. 6, has recorded many of these quaint titles, among them the following:--"_The Nail hit on the head_, and driven into the city and cathedral wall of Norwich. By John Carter, 1644." "_The Wheel turned_ by a voice from the throne of glory. By John Carter, 1647." "_Two Sticks made one_, or the excellence of Unity. By Matthew Mead, 1691." "_Peter's Net let downe_, or the Fisher and the Fish, both prepared towards a blessed haven. By R. Matthew, 1634." In the middle of the last century two religious tracts were published, one bearing the alarming title, "Die and be Damned," the other being termed, "A sure Guide to Hell." The first was levelled against the preaching of the Methodists, and the title obtained from what the author asserts to be the words of condemnation then frequently applied by them to all who differed from their creed. The second is a satirical attack on the prevalent follies and vices of the day, which form the surest "guide," in the opinion of the author, to the bottomless pit.]

LITERARY FOLLIES.

The Greeks composed lipogrammatic works; works in which one letter of the alphabet is omitted. A lipogrammatist is a letter-dropper. In this manner Tryphiodorus wrote his Odyssey; he had not [Greek: alpha] in his first book, nor [Greek: beta] in his second; and so on with the subsequent letters one after another. This Odyssey was an imitation of the lipogrammatic Iliad of Nestor. Among other works of this kind, Athenæus mentions an ode by Pindar, in which he had purposely omitted the letter S; so that this inept ingenuity appears to have been one of those literary fashions which are sometimes encouraged even by those who should first oppose such progresses into the realms of nonsense.

There is in Latin a little prose work of Fulgentius, which the author divides into twenty-three chapters, according to the order of the twenty-three letters of the Latin alphabet. From A to O are still remaining. The first chapter is with out A; the second without B; the third without C; and so with the rest. There are five novels in prose of Lopes de Vega; the first without A, the second without E, the third without I, &c. Who will attempt to verify them?

The Orientalists are not without this literary folly. A Persian poet read to the celebrated Jami a gazel of his own composition, which Jami did not like: but the writer replied, it was notwithstanding a very curious sonnet, for the _letter Aliff_ was not to be found in any one of the words! Jami sarcastically replied, "You can do a better thing yet; take away _all the letters_ from every word you have written."

To these works may be added the _Ecloga de Calvis_, by Hugbald the monk. All the words of this silly work begin with a C. It is printed in Dornavius. _Pugna Porcorum_; all the words beginning with a P, in the Nugæ Venales. _Canum cum cattis certamen_; the words beginning with a C: a performance of the same kind in the same work. Gregorio Leti presented a discourse to the Academy of the Humorists at Rome, throughout which he had purposely omitted the letter R, and he entitled it the exiled R. A friend having requested a copy, as a literary curiosity, for so he considered this idle performance, Leti, to show that this affair was not so difficult, replied by a copious answer of seven pages, in which he had observed the same severe ostracism against the letter R! Lord North, in the court of James, I., has written a set of Sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in the reign of Edward IV., translated the Moral Proverbs of Christiana of Pisa, a poem of about two hundred lines, the greatest part of which he contrived to conclude with the letter E; an instance of his lordship's hard application, and the bad taste of an age which, Lord Orford observes, had witticisms and whims to struggle with, as well as ignorance.

It has been well observed of these minute triflers, that extreme exactness is the sublime of fools, whose labours may be well called, in the language of Dryden,

Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.

And Martial says,

Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum.

Which we may translate,

'Tis a folly to sweat o'er a difficult trifle, And for silly devices invention to rifle.

I shall not dwell on the wits who composed verses in the forms of hearts, wings, altars, and true-love knots; or as Ben Jonson describes their grotesque shapes,

A pair of scissors and a comb in verse.

Tom Nash, who loved to push the ludicrous to its extreme, in his amusing invective against the classical Gabriel Harvey, tells us that "he had writ verses in all kinds; in form of a pair of gloves, a pair of spectacles, and a pair of pot-hooks," &c. They are not less absurd, who expose to public ridicule the name of their mistress by employing it to form their acrostics. I have seen some of the latter where, _both sides_ and _crossways_, the name of the mistress or the patron has been sent down to posterity with eternal torture. When _one name_ is made out _four times_ in the same acrostic, the great difficulty must have been to have found words by which the letters forming the name should be forced to stand in their particular places. It might be incredible that so great a genius as Boccaccio could have lent himself to these literary fashions; yet one of the most gigantic of acrostics may be seen in his works; it is a poem of fifty cantos! Ginguené has preserved a specimen in his Literary History of Italy, vol. iii. p.54. Puttenham, in "The Art of Poesie," p. 75, gives several odd specimens of poems in the forms of lozenges, rhomboids, pillars, &c. Puttenham has contrived to form a defence for describing and making such trifling devices. He has done more: he has erected two pillars himself to the honour of Queen Elizabeth; every pillar consists of a base of eight syllables, the shaft or middle of four, and the capital is equal with the base. The only difference between the two pillars consists in this; in the one "ye must read upwards," and in the other the reverse. These pillars, notwithstanding this fortunate device and variation, may be fixed as two columns in the porch of the vast temple of literary folly.

It was at this period, when _words_ or _verse_ were tortured into such fantastic forms, that the trees in gardens were twisted and sheared into obelisks and giants, peacocks, or flower-pots. In a copy of verses, "To a hair of my mistress's eye-lash," the merit, next to the choice of the subject, must have been the arrangement, or the disarrangement, of the whole poem into the form of a heart. With a pair of wings many a sonnet fluttered, and a sacred hymn was expressed by the mystical triangle. _Acrostics_ are formed from the initial letters of every verse; but a different conceit regulated _chronograms_, which were used to describe _dates_--the _numeral letters_, in whatever part of the word they stood, were distinguished from other letters by being written in capitals. In the following chronogram from Horace,

--_feriam sidera vertice_,

by a strange elevation of CAPITALS the _chronogrammatist_ compels even Horace to give the year of our Lord thus,

--feriaM siDera VertIce. MDVI.

The Acrostic and the Chronogram are both ingeniously described in the mock epic of the Scribleriad.[82] The _initial letters_ of the acrostics are thus alluded to in the literary wars:--

Firm and compact, in three fair columns wove, O'er the smooth plain, the bold _acrostics_ move; _High_ o'er the rest, the TOWERING LEADERS rise With _limbs gigantic_, and _superior size_.[83]

But the looser character of the _chronograms_, and the disorder in which they are found, are ingeniously sung thus:--

Not thus the _looser chronograms_ prepare Careless their troops, undisciplined to war; With _rank irregular, confused_ they stand, The CHIEFTAINS MINGLING with the vulgar band.

He afterwards adds others of the illegitimate race of wit:--

To join these squadrons, o'er the champaign came A numerous race of no ignoble name; _Riddle_ and _Rebus_, Riddle's dearest son, And _false Conundrum_ and _insidious Pun_. _Fustian_, who scarcely deigns to tread the ground, And _Rondeau_, wheeling in repeated round. On their fair standards, by the wind display'd, _Eggs_, _altars_, _wings_, _pipes_, _axes_, were pourtray'd.

I find the origin of _Bouts-rimés_, or "Rhyming Ends," in Goujet's Bib. Fr. xvi. p. 181. One Dulot, a foolish poet, when sonnets were in demand, had a singular custom of preparing the rhymes of these poems to be filled up at his leisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was regretting most the loss of three hundred sonnets: his friends were astonished that he had written so many which they had never heard. "They were _blank sonnets_," he replied; and explained the mystery by describing his _Bouts-rimés_. The idea appeared ridiculously amusing; and it soon became fashionable to collect the most difficult rhymes, and fill up the lines.

The _Charade_ is of recent birth, and I cannot discover the origin of this species of logogriphes. It was not known in France so late as in 1771; in the great Dictionnaire de Trévoux, the term appears only as the name of an Indian sect of a military character. Its mystical conceits have occasionally displayed singular felicity.

_Anagrams_ were another whimsical invention; with the _letters_ of any _name_ they contrived to make out some entire word, descriptive of the character of the person who bore the name. These anagrams, therefore, were either satirical or complimentary. When in fashion, lovers made use of them continually: I have read of one, whose mistress's name was Magdalen, for whom he composed, not only an epic under that name, but as a proof of his passion, one day he sent her three dozen of anagrams all on her lovely name. Scioppius imagined himself fortunate that his adversary _Scaliger_ was perfectly _Sacrilege_ in all the oblique cases of the Latin language; on this principle Sir John _Wiat_ was made out, to his own satisfaction--_a wit_. They were not always correct when a great compliment was required; the poet _John Cleveland_ was strained hard to make _Heliconian dew_. This literary trifle has, however, in our own times produced several, equally ingenious and caustic.

Verses of grotesque shapes have sometimes been contrived to convey ingenious thoughts. Pannard, a modern French poet, has tortured his agreeable vein of poetry into such forms. He has made some of his Bacchanalian songs to take the figures of _bottles_, and others of _glasses_. These objects are perfectly drawn by the various measures of the verses which form the songs. He has also introduced an _echo_ in his verses which he contrives so as not to injure their sense. This was practised by the old French bards in the age of Marot, and this poetical whim is ridiculed by Butler in his Hudibras, Part I. Canto 3, Verse 190. I give an example of these poetical echoes. The following ones are ingenious, lively, and satirical:--

Pour nous plaire, un pl_umet_

_Met_

Tout en usage:

Mais on trouve sou_vent_

_Vent_

Dans son langage.

On y voit des Com_mis_

_Mis_

Comme des Princes,

Après être ve_nus_

_Nuds_

De leurs Provinces.

The poetical whim of Cretin, a French poet, brought into fashion punning or equivocal rhymes. Maret thus addressed him in his own way:--

L'homme, sotart, et _non sçavant_ Comme un rotisseur, _qui lave oye_, La faute d'autrui, _nonce avant_, Qu'il la cognoisse, ou _qu'il la voye_, &c.

In these lines of Du Bartas, this poet imagined that he imitated the harmonious notes of the lark: "the sound" is here, however, _not_ "an echo to the sense."

La gentille aloüette, avec son tirelire, Tirelire, à lire, et tireliran, tire Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu, Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu.

The French have an ingenious kind of Nonsense Verses called _Amphigouries_. This word is composed of a Greek adverb signifying _about_, and of a substantive signifying _a circle_. The following is a specimen, elegant in the selection of words, and what the French called richly rhymed, but in fact they are fine verses without any meaning whatever. Pope's Stanzas, said to be written by a _person of quality_, to ridicule the tuneful nonsense of certain bards, and which Gilbert Wakefield mistook for a serious composition, and wrote two pages of Commentary to prove this song was disjointed, obscure, and absurd, is an excellent specimen of these _Amphigouries_.

AMPHIGOURIE.

Qu'il est heureux de se defendre Quand le coeur ne s'est pas rendu! Mais qu'il est facheux de se rendre Quand le bonheur est suspendu!

Par un discours sans suite et tendre, Egarez un coeur éperdu; Souvent par un mal-entendu L'amant adroit se fait entendre.

IMITATED.

How happy to defend our heart, When Love has never thrown a dart! But ah! unhappy when it bends, If pleasure her soft bliss suspends! Sweet in a wild disordered strain, A lost and wandering heart to gain! Oft in mistaken language wooed, The skilful lover's understood.

These verses have such a resemblance to meaning, that Fontenelle, having listened to the song, imagined that he had a glimpse of sense, and requested to have it repeated. "Don't you perceive," said Madame Tencin, "that they are _nonsense verses_?" The malicious wit retorted, "They are so much like the fine verses I have heard here, that it is not surprising I should be for once mistaken."

In the "Scribleriad" we find a good account of _the Cento_. A Cento primarily signifies a cloak made of patches. In poetry it denotes a work wholly composed of verses, or passages promiscuously taken from other authors, only disposed in a new form or order, so as to compose a new work and a new meaning. Ausonius has laid down the rules to be observed in composing _Cento's_. The pieces may be taken either from the same poet, or from several; and the verses may be either taken entire, or divided into two; one half to be connected with another half taken elsewhere; but two verses are never to be taken together. Agreeable to these rules, he has made a pleasant nuptial _Cento_ from Virgil.[84]

The Empress Eudoxia wrote the life of Jesus Christ, in centos taken from Homer; Proba Falconia from Virgil. Among these grave triflers may be mentioned Alexander Ross, who published "Virgilius Evangelizans, sive Historia Domini et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi Virgilianis verbis et versibus descripta." It was republished in 1769.

A more difficult whim is that of "_Reciprocal Verses_," which give the same words whether read backwards or forwards. The following lines by Sidonius Apollinaris were once infinitely admired:--

_Signa te signa temere me tangis et angis. Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor._

The reader has only to take the pains of reading the lines backwards, and he will find himself just where he was after all his fatigue.[85]

Capitaine Lasphrise, a French self-taught poet, boasts of his inventions; among other singularities, one has at least the merit of _la difficulté vaincue_. He asserts this novelty to be entirely his own; the last word of every verse forms the first word of the following verse:

Falloit-il que le ciel me rendit amoureux Amoureux, jouissant d'une beauté craintive, Craintive à recevoir la douceur excessive, Excessive au plaisir qui rend l'amant heureux; Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux, Lieux où plus surement l'ami fidèle arrive, Arrive sans soupçon de quelque ami attentive, Attentive à vouloir nous surprendre tous deux.

Francis Colonna, an Italian Monk, is the author of a singular book entitled "The Dream of Poliphilus," in which he relates his amours with a lady of the name of Polia. It was considered improper to prefix his name to the work; but being desirous of marking it by some peculiarity, that he might claim it at any distant day, he contrived that the initial letters of every chapter should be formed of those of his name, and of the subject he treats. This strange invention was not discovered till many years afterwards: when the wits employed themselves in deciphering it, unfortunately it became a source of literary altercation, being susceptible of various readings. The correct appears thus:--POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCUS COLUMNA PERAMAVIT. "Brother Francis Colonna passionately loved Polia." This gallant monk, like another Petrarch, made the name of his mistress the subject of his amatorial meditations; and as the first called his Laura, his Laurel, this called his Polia, his Polita.

A few years afterwards, Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus employed a similar artifice in his ZODIACUS VITÆ, "The Zodiac of Life:" the initial letters of the first twenty-nine verses of the first book of this poem forming his name, which curious particular was probably unknown to Warton in his account of this work.--The performance is divided into twelve books, but has no reference to astronomy, which we might naturally expect. He distinguished his twelve books by the twelve names of the celestial signs, and probably extended or confined them purposely to that number, to humour his fancy. Warton, however, observes, "This strange pedantic title is not totally without a _conceit_, as the author was born at _Stellada_ or _Stellata_, a province of Ferrara, and from whence he called himself Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus." The work itself is a curious satire on the Pope and the Church of Rome. It occasioned Bayle to commit a remarkable _literary blunder_, which I shall record in its place. Of Italian conceit in those times, of which Petrarch was the father, with his perpetual play on words and on his _Laurel_, or his mistress _Laura_, he has himself afforded a remarkable example. Our poet lost his mother, who died in her thirty-eighth year: he has commemorated her death by a sonnet composed of thirty-eight lines. He seems to have conceived that the exactness of the number was equally natural and tender.

Are we not to class among _literary follies_ the strange researches which writers, even of the present day, have made in _Antediluvian_ times? Forgeries of the grossest nature have been alluded to, or quoted as authorities. A _Book of Enoch_ once attracted considerable attention; this curious forgery has been recently translated. The Sabeans pretend they possess a work written by _Adam_! and this work has been _recently_ appealed to in favour of a visionary theory![86] Astle gravely observes, that "with respect to _Writings_ attributed to the _Antediluvians_, it seems not only decent but rational to say that we know nothing concerning them." Without alluding to living writers, Dr. Parsons, in his erudite "Remains of Japhet," tracing the origin of the alphabetical character, supposes that _letters_ were known to _Adam_! Some, too, have noticed astronomical libraries in the Ark of Noah! Such historical memorials are the deliriums of learning, or are founded on forgeries.

Hugh Broughton, a writer of controversy in the reign of James the First, shows us, in a tedious discussion on Scripture chronology, that Rahab was a harlot at _ten_ years of age; and enters into many grave discussions concerning the _colour_ of Aaron's _ephod_, and the language which _Eve_ first spoke. This writer is ridiculed in Ben Jonson's Comedies:--he is not without rivals even in the present day! Covarruvias, after others of his school, discovers that when male children are born they cry out with an A, being the first vowel of the word _Adam_, while the female infants prefer the letter E, in allusion to _Eve_; and we may add that, by the pinch of a negligent nurse, they may probably learn all their vowels. Of the pedantic triflings of commentators, a controversy among the Portuguese on the works of Camoens is not the least. Some of these profound critics, who affected great delicacy in the laws of epic poetry, pretended to be doubtful whether the poet had fixed on the right time for a _king's dream_; whether, said they, a king should have a propitious dream on his _first going to bed_ or at the _dawn of the following morning_? No one seemed to be quite certain; they puzzled each other till the controversy closed in this felicitous manner, and satisfied both the night and the dawn critics. Barreto discovered that an _accent_ on one of the words alluded to in the controversy would answer the purpose, and by making king Manuel's dream to take place at the dawn would restore Camoens to their good opinion, and preserve the dignity of the poet.

Chevreau begins his History of the World in these words:--"Several learned men have examined in _what season_ God created the world, though there could hardly be any season then, since there was no sun, no moon, nor stars. But as the world must have been created in one of the four seasons, this question has exercised the talents of the most curious, and opinions are various. Some say it was in the month of _Nisan_, that is, in the spring: others maintain that it was in the month of _Tisri_, which begins the civil year of the Jews, and that it was on the _sixth day_ of this month, which answers to our _September_, that _Adam_ and _Eve_ were created, and that it was on a _Friday_, a little after four o'clock in the afternoon!" This is according to the Rabbinical notion of the eve of the Sabbath.