Part 11

To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. The slothful effeminacy of the former, exposed them to the contempt; the sullen ferociousness of the latter, excited the aversion of the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city; and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemys, before an Egyptian was admitted into the Senate of Rome, the first instance of which happened under the reign of Septimius Severus.

Dr. HERSCHEL.

In the History of Doncaster, written by Dr. Miller, we find the following account of the early years of this eminent astronomer:—

“It will ever be a gratifying reflection to me,” says Dr. Miller, “that I was the first person by whose means this extraordinary genius was drawn from a state of obscurity. About the year 1760, as I was dining with the officers of the Durham militia, at Pontefract, one of them informed me, that they had a young German in their band, as a performer on the hautboy, who had been only a few months in this country, and yet spoke English almost as well as a native; that exclusively of the hautboy, he was an excellent performer on the violin, and if I chose to repair to another room, he should entertain me with a solo. I did so, and Mr. Herschel executed a solo of Giordani’s in a manner that surprised me. Afterwards I took an opportunity to have a little private conversation with him, and requested to know if he had engaged himself to the Durham militia for any long period? he answered, ‘No, only from month to month.’ Leave them then, said I, and come and live with me; I am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; doubtless your merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible situation. He consented to my request, and came to Doncaster. It is true, at that time, my humble mansion consisted but of two rooms; however, poor as I was, my cottage contained a small library of well chosen books; and it must appear singular, that a young German, who had been so short a time in England, should understand even the peculiarities of our language so well, as to adopt Dean Swift for his favourite author. I took an early opportunity of introducing him at Mr. Copley’s concert; and he presently began

“Untwisting all the charms that tie ”The hidden soul of harmony.”

For never before had we heard the concertos of Corelli, Geminiani, and Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more chastely, or more according to the original intention of the composers, than by Mr. Herschel. I soon lost my companion; his fame was presently spread abroad, he had the offer of scholars, and was solicited to lead the public concerts at Wakefield and Halifax.

“About this time a new organ, for the parish church of Halifax, was built by Snetzler; which was opened with an oratorio, by the late well-known Joah Bates. Mr. Herschel, and six others, were candidates for the organist’s place. They drew lots how they were to perform in rotation. Herschel drew the third lot—the second performer was Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Wainwright, of Manchester, whose finger was so rapid, that old Snetzler, the organ builder, ran about the church exclaiming:—‘Te tevil, te tevil, he run over te keys like one cat, he will not give my pipes room for to shpeak!’ During Mr. Wainwright’s performance, I was standing in the middle aile with Herschel;—What chance have you, said I, to follow this man? He replied, ‘I do not know, I am sure fingers will not do.’ On which he ascended the loft, and produced from the organ such an uncommon fullness, such a volume of slow, solemn harmony, that I could by no means account for the effect. After this short extemporary effusion, he finished with the old hundredth psalm, which he played better than his opponent. ‘Aye, aye,’ cried old Snetzler, ‘tish is very goot, very goot inteet; I will luf tish man, for he gives my pipes room for to shpeak!’ Having afterwards asked Herschel by what means, in the beginning of his performance he produced such an uncommon effect? he replied, ‘I told you fingers would not do,’ and producing two pieces of lead from his pocket, ‘one of these,’ said he, ‘I placed on the lowest key of the organ, and the other upon the octave above; thus by accommodating the harmony, I produced the effect of four hands instead of two. However, as my leading the concert on the violin, is their principal object, they will give me the place in preference to a better performer on the organ; but I shall not stay long here, for I have the offer of a superior situation at Bath, which offer I shall accept.’“

PARODIES.

The present use of this word is strictly consonant with that of the ancients, who applied it to the giving a ridiculous turn to passages in Homer and the tragic Poets. There are many in Aristophanes. One of the happiest modern instances is the parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in the Rape of the Lock. The genealogy of Agamemnon’s sceptre is also parodied in the same poem, canto 5, v. 87.

MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.

In the Mosaic law the Israelites were commanded _not to cut themselves for the dead_. The original Hebrew has, however a more extensive meaning than cutting, and includes all assaults on their own persons, arising from immoderate grief, such as beating the breasts, tearing the hair, &c. which were commonly practised by the heathen, who had no hope of a resurrection, particularly by the Egyptians, which might afford a particular reason for the Mosaic prohibition. We may also observe, that among the Romans, it was ordained by one of the laws of the twelve tables, “Let not women tear their faces, or make lamentations at funerals,” which proves that this was the custom with the Romans, previously to making this law. No doubt the law itself was immediately borrowed from the Athenian code, of which it is a literal translation.

The Priests of Baal, (1 Kings, ch. 18, v. 28.) assaulted themselves with knives and lances, which was indeed equivalent to cutting themselves. Nor was this frantic custom confined to the Priests of Baal; the _Galli_, and other devotees of the Syrian goddess, cut their arms, and scourged each others backs, according to Lucian. “Baal’s Priests”, says Dr. Leland, “were wont to cut and slash themselves with knives and lances. The same thing was practised in the worship of Isis, according to Herodotus, and of Bellona, as Lucan mentions. Many authors take notice of the solemnities of Cybele, the mother of the gods, whose priests in their sacred processions, made hideous noises and howlings, cutting themselves till the blood gushed out, as they went along.”

GARRICK.

The genius of Garrick seems to have been particularly calculated to introduce Shakespeare on the stage. He knew how to alter him so as to fit him for the audience of the present day, without divesting him of any of his excellencies, and the few additions he has ventured are in the spirit of the original. These Plays, so altered, are likely to keep possession of the theatre, while every other attempt at change or improvement are forgotten, except Cibber’s Richard the Third, and Tate’s Lear, which, with some correction of Garrick’s, are still acted, though the alteration of the last is directly in opposition to the precepts of Aristotle and Mr. Addison.

Cibber, though versed in the province of the drama, which is perhaps essential to make a good dramatic writer, since the knowledge of stage effect is of great consequence, possessed a genius not above mediocrity; and Tate was a very indifferent poet. Yet there is a line in Cibber’s Richard, written by himself, so characteristic of the manner of his archetype, that it has often been cited as one of Shakespeare’s beauties. I mean the exclamation of Richard, on Buckingham’s being taken,

“Off with his head! so much for Buckingham.”

And I heard, says Mr. Pye, (Comment. on Aristotle,) Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, quote the following verse of Tate’s, in the House of Commons, undoubtedly taking it for Shakespeare’s,

“Where the gor’d battle bleeds in every vein.”

The tragedy of Hamlet was, by order of Mrs. Garrick, thrown into Garrick’s grave. Though he was undoubtedly great in that character, he was equally so in many of Shakespeare’s characters, and superior in Lear. The comic characters it is presumed were thought too light for so solemn an occasion. If by burying that tragedy with Garrick it was meant to infer that it was lost to the stage with him, a complete edition of Shakespeare might, with the utmost propriety have been interred with that inimitable actor.

LEMONS.

Theophrastus, who studied under Plato and Aristotle, says of lemons, that they were cultivated for their fragrance, not for their taste; that the peel was laid up with garments, to preserve them from moths; and that the juice was administered by physicians medicinally.

Virgil in his second Georgic, describes agreeably the Lemon-tree. Pliny mentions the lemon-juice as an antidote; but says that the fruit, from its austere taste, was not eaten.

Plutarch, who nourished within a generation of Pliny, witnessed the introduction of lemons at the Roman tables. Juba, king of Mauritania, was the first who exhibited them at his dinners. And Athenæus introduces Democritus as not wondering that old people made wry mouths at the taste of lemons; for, adds he, in my grandfather’s time, they were never set upon the table. And to this day the Chinese, who grow the fruit, do not apply it to culinary purposes.

The great use of lemons began with the introduction of sugar, which is said to have resulted from the conquest of Sicily, by the Arabs, in the ninth century. Sestini, in his letters from Sicily and Turkey, thinks that the best sorts of lemons, and the best sorts of sherbet, were derived from Florence, by the Sicilians. Probably Rome continued, even in the dark ages, to be the chief seat of luxury and refinement; and had domesticated the art of making lemonade, before either Messina or Florence.

In Madagascar slices of lemon are boiled, and eaten with salt.

Pomet, in his History of Drugs, gives the preference over all others to the lemons of Madeira; but according to Ferrarius, there grows at the Cape a sweet lemon, to which he gives the name _incomparabilis_.

ORIGIN OF THE POINT OF HONOUR.

We meet with inexplicable enigmas in the codes of the laws of the barbarians. The law of the Frisians allowed only about the value of a farthing, by way of compensation, to a person who had been beaten with a stick; and yet for ever such a small wound it allows more. By the Salic law, if a freeman gave three blows with a stick to another freeman, he paid about three halfpence; if he drew blood, he was punished as if he had wounded him with steel, and he paid about seven-pence halfpenny; thus the punishment was proportioned to the greatness of the wound. The law of the Lombards established different compensations for one, two, three, four blows, and so on. At present a single blow is equivalent to a hundred thousand.

The constitution of Charlemagne, inserted in the law of the Lombards, ordains, that those who were allowed the trial by combat, should fight with clubs. Perhaps this was out of regard to the clergy; or, probably, as the usage of legal duels gained ground, they wanted to render them less sanguinary. The capitulary of Louis the Pious, added to the Salic law in 819, allows the liberty of chusing to fight either with the sword or club. In process of time none but bondmen or slaves fought with the club.

Here may be seen the first rise and formation of the particular articles of our point of honour. The accuser began with declaring, in the presence of the judge, that such a person had committed such an action, and the accused made answer that, _he lied_; upon which the judge gave orders for the duel. It became then an established rule, that whenever a person had the lie given him, it was incumbent on him to fight.

Upon a man’s declaring he would fight, he could not afterwards depart from his word; if he did, he was condemned to a penalty. Hence this rule followed, that whenever a person had engaged his word, honour forbade him to recal it.

Gentlemen fought one another on horseback, armed at all points; villans fought on foot, and with clubs.[41] Hence it followed, that the club was looked upon as the instrument of insults and affronts,[42] because to strike a man with it, was treating him like a villan.

No one but villans fought with their faces uncovered;[43] so that none but they could receive a blow on the face. Therefore a box on the ear, became an injury that must be expiated with blood, because the person who received it, had been treated as a villan.

The several people of Germany were not less sensible of the point of honour. The most distant relations took a very considerable share to themselves in every affront, and on this all their codes are founded. The law of the Lombards ordains, that whoever goes attended with servants to beat a man by surprize, in order to load him thereby with shame, and to render him ridiculous, should pay half the compensation, which he would owe if he had killed him; and if through the same motive he tied or bound him, he should pay three fourths of the same compensation.

Footnote 41:

The club was in use at the Norman Conquest, and in the succeeding ages. St. Louis had a band of Guards armed with clubs, and was himself very dextrous in the use of it.

Pennant, in describing the customs of the ancient Bards and Minstrels of Wales, says, that the lowest of the musical tribe was the _Datceiniad pen pastwn_, or he that sung to the sound of his club, being ignorant of every other kind of instrument. When he was permitted to be introduced, he was obliged to stand in the middle of the hall, and sing his _cowydd_ or _awdl_, beating time, and playing the symphony with his _pastwn_ or club; but if there was a professor of music present, his leave must be first obtained before he presumed to entertain the company with this species of melody. Wherever he came he must act as a menial servant to the bard or minstrel.

Footnote 42:

Among the Romans it was not infamous to be beaten with a stick.

Footnote 43:

They had only the club and buckler.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.

Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first person, after the conquest, who attempted to write any thing concerning the ancient history of Britain. Although the century, in which he lived, is known, yet neither his family, the time of his birth, nor the place of his education has been ascertained. We are only informed that he was born at Monmouth, and became archdeacon of that place, and that he was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, in 1152, which he resigned to live in the monastery of Abingdon. By some writers he is called a monk of the Dominican order, but, according to Leland, without sufficient authority. Warton says that he was a Benedictine monk.

The history which has made his name celebrated, is entitled _Chronicon sive Historia Britonum_. This history, written in the British or Armorican language, was brought into England by Walter Mapes, otherwise Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, a learned man, and a diligent collector of histories. Travelling through France, about the year 1100, he procured in Armorica, this ancient chronicle, and, on his return, communicated it to Geoffrey, who, according to Warton, (History of English Poetry,) was an elegant Latin writer, and admirably skilled in the British tongue. Geoffrey, at the request and recommendation of Walter, translated this British chronicle into Latin, executing the translation with some degree of purity, and fidelity, insomuch that Matthew Paris speaking of him with reference to this history, says that he approved himself _Interpres verus_. With whatever fidelity the translation might be made, Geoffrey, however, was guilty of several interpolations, for he confesses that he took some part of his account of king Arthur’s achievements, from the mouth of his friend Walter, the archdeacon. He also owns that the account of Merlin’s prophecies was not in the Armorican original. The speeches and letters were his own forgeries, and in the description of battles, he has not scrupled to make frequent variations and additions.

Geoffrey dedicated his translation to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of king Henry the first; this, however, did not protect him from the lash even of his contemporaries, for his fables, it appears, were soon discovered, and William Neubrigensis, who lived about the same time, in the beginning of the history which he wrote, thus speaks of him; “In these days a certain writer is risen, who has devised many foolish fictions of the Britons; he is named _Geoffrey_, and with what little shame, and great confidence does he frame his falsehoods.” William himself, however, did not escape censure for thus animadverting upon Geoffrey.

It is difficult to ascertain at what period the original of Geoffrey’s history was compiled. The subject of it, when divested of its romantic embellishments, is a deduction of the Welsh princes, from the Trojan Brutus to Cadwallader, who reigned in the seventh century; and this notion of their extraction from the Trojans, had so infatuated the Welsh, that even so late as the year 1284, archbishop Peckham, in his injunctions to the diocese of St. Asaph, orders the people to abstain from giving credit to idle dreams and visions, a superstition which they had contracted from their belief in the dream of their founder Brutus, in the temple of Diana, concerning his arrival in Britain. The archbishop very seriously, advises them to boast no more of their relation to the conquered and fugitive Trojans, but to glory in the victorious cross of CHRIST.

The Welsh were not singular in being desirous of tracing their descent from the Trojans, for several European nations were anciently fond of being considered as the offspring of that people. A French historian of the sixth century ascribes the origin of his countrymen to Francio, a son of Priam, and so universal was this humour, and to such an absurd excess of extravagance was it carried, that under the reign of Justinian, even the Greeks themselves were ambitious of being thought to be descended from their ancient enemies the Trojans. The most rational mode of accounting for this predilection, is to suppose, that the revival of Virgil’s Æneid, about the sixth or seventh century, which represents the Trojans as the founders of Rome, the capital of the supreme Pontiff, and a city on various other accounts in the early ages of christianity, highly reverenced and distinguished, occasioned an emulation in many other European nations of claiming an alliance to the same celebrated original. In the mean time it is not quite improbable, that as most of the European nations had become provinces of the Roman empire, those who fancied themselves to be of Trojan extraction might have imbibed this notion, or at least have acquired a general knowledge of the Trojan story from their conquerors, more especially the Britons, who continued so long under the Roman Government.

Geoffrey produces Homer in attestation of a fact asserted in his history; but in such a manner as shews that he knew little more than Homer’s name, and was but imperfectly acquainted with Homer’s subject. Geoffrey says that Brutus having ravaged the province of Aquitaine with fire and sword, came to a place where the city of Tours now stands, _as Homer testifies_.

This fable of the descent of the Britons from the Trojans was solemnly alleged as an authentic and undeniable proof in a controversy of great national importance by king Edward the first, and his nobility, without the least objection from the opposite party. It was in the famous dispute concerning the subjection of the crown of Scotland to that of England, about the year 1301. The allegations are contained in a letter to Pope Boniface, signed and sealed by the king and his lords. This is a curious instance of the implicit faith with which this tradition continued to be believed, even in a more enlightened age; and an evidence that it was equally credited in Scotland.

As to the story of Brutus in particular, Geoffrey’s hero, it may be presumed, that his legend was not contrived, nor the history of his successors invented, until after the ninth century; for Nennius,[44] who lived about the middle of that century, not only speaks of Brutus with great obscurity and inconsistency, but seems totally uninformed as to every circumstance of the British affairs which preceded Cæsar’s invasion. There are other proofs that this piece could not have existed before the ninth century. Alfred’s Saxon translation of the Mercian law is mentioned; and Charlemagne’s twelve peers, by an anachronism not uncommon in romance, are said to be present at king Arthur’s magnificent coronation, in the city of Caerleon. It were easy to produce instances, that Geoffrey’s chronicle was, undoubtedly, framed after the legend of St. Ursula, the acts of St. Lucius, and the historical writings of Venerable Bede, had procured a considerable circulation in the neighbouring countries. At the same time it contains many passages which incline us to determine, that some parts of it, at least, were written after or about the eleventh century.

Warton, (Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Dis. 1.) in order to prove these positions, says, that he will not insist on that passage, in which the title of legate of the apostolic see is attributed to Dubricius, in the character of the primate of Britain, as it appears for obvious reasons, to have been an artful interpolation of Geoffrey, who, it will be remembered, was an ecclesiastic. Other arguments present themselves, possessing more efficiency; Canute’s forest, or Cannock Wood, in Staffordshire, occurs, and Canute died in the year 1036.