Part 4

In those times when Fryer _Bacon_ did all his strange tricks, the Kings of _England_ had a great part of _France_ which they held a long time, till civil wars at home in this Land made them to lose it. It did chance that the King of England (for some cause best known to himself) went into _France_ with a great Army, where after many victories, he did besiege a strong Town, and lay before it full three months, without doing to the Town any great damage, but rather received the hurt himself. This did so vex the King, that he sought to take it in any way, either by policy or strength: to this intent he made Proclamation, that whosoever could deliver this Town into his hand, he should have for his pains ten thousand Crowns truly paid. This was proclaimed, but there was none found that would undertake it: at length the news did come into _England_ of this great reward that was promised. Fryer _Bacon_ hearing of it, went into _France_, and being admitted to the King's presence, he thus spake unto him: "Your Majesty I am sure hath not forgot your poor servant _Bacon_, the love that you showed to me being last in your presence, hath drawn me for to leave my Country and my Studies, to do your Majesty service: I beseech your Grace, to command me so far as my poor Art or life may do you pleasure." The King thanked him for his love, but told him that he had now more need of Arms than Art, and wanted brave Soldiers rather than learned Scholars. Fryer _Bacon_ answered, "Your Grace saith well; but let me (under correction) tell you, that Art oftentimes doth these things that are impossible to Arms, which I will make good in few examples. I will speak only of things performed by Art and Nature, wherein there shall be nothing Magical: and first by the figuration of Art, there may be made Instruments of Navigation without men to row in them, as great ships, to brook the Sea, only with one man to steer them, and they shall sail far more swiftly than if they were full of men: Also Chariots that shall move with an unspeakable force, without any living creature to stir them. Likewise, an Instrument may be made to fly withal, if one sit in the midst of the Instrument, and do turn an engine, by which the wings being Artificially composed, may beat air after the manner of a flying Bird. By an Instrument of three fingers high, and three fingers broad, a man may rid himself and others from all Imprisonment: yea, such an Instrument may easily be made, whereby a man may violently draw unto him a thousand men, will they, nill they, or any other thing. By Art also an Instrument may be made, wherewith men may walk in the bottom of the Sea or Rivers without bodily danger: this _Alexander_ the Great used (as the Ethnic philosopher reporteth) to the end he might behold the Secrets of the Seas. But Physical Figurations are far more strange: for by that may be framed Perspects and Looking-glasses, that one thing shall appear to be many, as one man shall appear to be a whole Army, and one Sun or Moon shall seem divers. Also perspects may be so framed, that things far off shall seem most nigh unto us: with one of these did _Julius Cæsar_ from the Sea coasts in _France_ marke and observe the situation of the Castles in _England_. Bodies may also be so framed, that the greatest things shall appear to be the least, the highest lowest, the most secret to be the most manifest, and in such like sort the contrary. Thus did _Socrates_ perceive, that the Dragon which did destroy the City and Country adjoining with his noisome breath, and contagious influence, did lurk in the dens between the Mountains: and thus may all things that are done in Cities or Armies be discovered by the enemies. Again, in such wise may bodies be framed, that venemous and infectious influences may be brought whither a man will: In this did _Aristotle_ instruct _Alexander_; through which instruction the poyson of a Basiliske, being lifted up upon the wall of a City, the poyson was conveyed into the City, to the destruction thereof: Also perspects may be made to deceive the sight, as to make a man believe that he seeth great store of riches when there is not any. But it appertaineth to a higher power of Figuration, that beams should be brought and assembled by divers flections and reflections in any distance that we will, to burne anything that is opposite unto it, as is witnessed by those Perspects or Glasses that burn before and behind. But the greatest and chiefest of all figurations and things figured, is to describe the heavenly bodies, according to their length and breadth in a corporal figure, wherein they may corporally move with a daily motion. These things are worth a kingdom to a wise man. These may suffise, my royal Lord, to shew what Art can do: and these, with many things more, as strange, I am able by Art to perform. Then take no thought for winning this Town, for by my Art you shall (ere many days be past) have your desire."

The King all this while heard him with admiration: but hearing him now, that he would undertake to win the Town, he burst out in these speeches: "Most learned _Bacon_, do but what thou hast said, and I will give thee what thou most desirest, either wealth or honour, choose what thou wilt, and I will be as ready to perform, as I have been to promise."

"Your Majesty's love is all that I seek," said the Fryer, "let me have that, and I have honour enough, for wealth, I have content, the wise should seek no more: but to the purpose. Let your Pioneers raise up a mount so high, (or rather higher), than the wall, and then you shall see some probability of that which I have promised."

This Mount in two days was raised: then Fryer _Bacon_ went with the King to the Top of it, and did with a perspect shew to him the Town, as plainly as if he had been in it: at this the King did wonder, but Fryer _Bacon_ told him, that he should wonder more, ere next day noon: against which Time, he desired him to have his whole Army in readiness, for to scale the wall upon a signal given by him, from the Mount. This the King promised to do, and so returned to his Tent full of Joy, that he should gain this strong Town. In the morning Fryer _Bacon_ went up to the Mount and set his Glasses, and other Instruments up: in the meantime the King ordered his Army, and stood in a readiness for to give the assaults: when the signal was given which was the waving of a flag. Ere nine of the clock Fryer _Bacon_ had burnt the State-house of the Town, with other houses only by his Mathematical Glasses, which made the whole Town in an uproar, for none did know how it came: whilst that they were quenching of the same, Fryer _Bacon_ did wave his flag: upon which signal given, the King set upon the Town, and took it with little or no resistance. Thus through the Art of this learned man the King got this strong Town, which he could not do with all his men without Fryer _Bacon's_ help.

HOW FRYER BACON BURNT HIS BOOKS OF MAGIC AND GAVE HIMSELF TO THE STUDY OF DIVINITY ONLY; AND HOW HE TURNED ANCHORITE.

Now in a time when Fryer _Bacon_ kept his Chamber (having some great grief) he fell into divers meditations: sometimes into the vanity of Arts and Sciences: then would he condemn himself for studying of those things that were so contrary to his Order and Soul's health; and would say that Magic made a Man a Devil; sometimes would he meditate on Divinity; then would he cry out upon himself for neglecting the study of it, and for studying Magic: sometime would he meditate on the shortness of man's life, then would he condemn himself for spending a time so short, so ill as he had done his: so would he go from one thing to another and in all condemn his former studies.

And that the world should know how truly he did repent his wicked life, he caused to be made a great fire; and sending for many of his Friends, Scholars, and others, he spake to them after this manner: "My good Friends and fellow Students, it is not unknown unto you, how that through my Art I have attained to that credit, that few men living ever had. Of the wonders that I have done, all England can speak, both King and Commons: I have unlocked the secret of Art and Nature, and let the world see those things, that have layen hid since the death of Hermes, that rare and profound Philosopher: My Studies have found the secrets of the Stars; the Books that I have made of them, do serve for Precedents to our greatest Doctors, so excellent hath my Judgement been therein. I likewise have found out the secrets of Trees, Plants and Stones, with their several uses; yet all this knowledge of mine I esteem so lightly, that I wish that I were ignorant, and knew nothing: for the knowledge of these things, (as I have truly found) serveth not to better a man in goodness, but only to make him proud and think too well of himself. What hath all my knowledge of nature's secrets gained me? Only this, the loss of a better knowledge, the loss of divine Studies, which makes the immortal part of man (his Soul) blessed. I have found, that my knowledge has been a heavy burden, and has kept down my good thoughts: but I will remove the cause which are these Books: which I do purpose here before you all to burn." They all intreated him to spare the Books, because in them there were those things that after-ages might receive great benefit by. He would not hearken unto them but threw them all into the fire, and in that flame burnt the greatest learning in the world. Then did he dispose of all his goods; some part he gave to poor Scholars, and some he gave to other poor folks: nothing he left for himself: then caused he to be made in the Church-wall a Cell, where he locked himself in, and there remained till his death. His time he spent in Prayer, Meditation and such Divine Exercises, and did seek by all means to persuade men from the study of Magic. Thus lived he some two years space in that Cell, never coming forth: his meat and drink he received in at a window, and at that window he did discourse with those that came to him; His grave he digged with his own nails, and was laid there when he dyed. Thus was the Life and Death of this famous Fryer, who lived the most part of his life a Magician, and died a true penitent sinner and an Anchorite.

When Hester had finished reading, one of the boys said that if people believed such things as that, he thought the wonder was that they made any progress at all. Uncle Fritz said that in matters which make up what we call science, they did not make much progress. The arts of the world do not seem to have advanced much between the days of Solomon and those of William the Conqueror.

"As you see," said Uncle Fritz, "an inventor was set down as a magician. I think you can remember more instances."

Yes. Almost all the young people remember that in Marco Polo's day there was a distinguished Venetian engineer with the armies of Genghis Khan, whose wonderful successes gave rise, perhaps, to the story of Aladdin.[5] The scene of his successes was Pekin; and it is to be remembered that the story of Aladdin is not properly one of the Arabian Nights, and that the scene is laid in China.

This led them to trying to match the wonders of Aladdin and of the Arabian Nights by the wonders of modern invention; and they pleased themselves by thinking of marvels they could show to unlearned nations if they had the resources of Mr. Edison's laboratory.

"Aladdin rubbed his lamp," said Blanche. "You see, the lamp was his electrical machine; and when he rubbed it, the lightnings went flying hither and thither, and said, 'Here we are.'"

"That is all very fine," said Jack Withers; "but I stand by the Arabian Nights, after all, and I think I shall, till Mr. Edison or the Taunton locomotive shop will make for me some high-stepper on whose back I may rise above the clouds, pass over the length and breadth of Massachusetts, descend in the garden where Blanche is confined by the hated mistress of a boarding-school in Walpole, and then, winning her ready consent, can mount again with her, and before morning descend in the garden of a beautiful cottage at Newport. We will spend six weeks in playing tennis in the daytime, dancing in the Casino in the evenings, and in sailing in Frank Shattuck's yacht between whiles. Then, and not till then, would I admit that the Arabian Nights have been outdone by modern science."

They all laughed at Jack's extravaganza, which is of a kind to which they are beginning to be accustomed. But Mabel stuck to her text, and said seriously, that Uncle Fred had said that what people now called science sprung from the workshops of these very magicians. "The magicians then had all the science there was. And if magic had not got a bad name, should we not call the men of science magicians now?"

Uncle Fritz said yes to all her questions, but he said that they did not cover the whole matter. The difference between a magician and a man of science involves these habits: the magician keeps secret what he knows, while the man of science discloses all he learns. Then the magician affected to have spiritual power at command, while the man of science only affects to use what he calls physical powers. Till either of them tell us how to distinguish spiritual forces from physical forces, the second distinction is of the less importance. But the other has made all the difference in the world between the poor magic-men and the science-men. For, as they had seen with Friar Bacon, the magic-men have had their stories told by most ignorant people, seeing they did not generally leave any records behind them; but the men of modern science, having chosen to tell their own stories, have had them told, on the whole, reasonably well, though generally stupidly.

"What a pity we have not Solomon's books of science!" said John Tolman.

"It is one of the greatest of pities that such books as those were not kept. It seems as if people would have built on such foundations, and that Science would have marched from step to step, instead of beginning over and over again. But we do have Pliny's Natural History, as he chose to call it. Far from building on that as a foundation, the Dark Ages simply accepted it. And there are blunders or sheer lies in that book, and in Aristotle's books, and Theophrastus's, and other such, which have survived even to our day."

The children were peeping into the collection from which the Friar Bacon stories had been read, and they lighted on these scraps about the supposed life of Virgil. To the people of the Dark Ages Virgil was much more a man of magic than a poet.

HOW VIRGILIUS WAS SET TO SCHOOL.

As Virgilius was born, then the town of Rome quaked and trembled: and in his youth he was wise and subtle, and was put to school at Tolentin, where he studied diligently, for he was of great understanding. Upon a time the scholars had licence to go to play and sport them in the fields after the usance of the old time; and there was also Virgilius thereby also walking among the hills all about: it fortuned he spied a great hole in the side of a great hill wherein he went so deep that he could not see no more light, and then he went a little further therein, and then he saw some light again, and then went he forth straight: and within a little while after, he heard a voice that called, "Virgilius, Virgilius;" and he looked about, and he could not see no body; then Virgilius spake and asked, "Who calleth me?" Then heard he the voice again, but he saw nobody: then said he, "Virgilius, see ye not that little board lying beside you there, marked with that word?" Then answered Virgilius, "I see that board well enough." The voice said, "Do away that board, and let me out thereat." Then answered Virgilius to the voice that was under the little board, and said, "Who art thou that talkest me so!" Then answered the devil: "I am a devil, conjured out of the body of a certain man, and banished till the day of judgement, without I be delivered by the hands of men. Thus, Virgilius, I pray you to deliver me out of this pain, and I shall shew unto thee many books of necromancy, and how thou shalt come by it lightly and know the practise therein, that no man in the science of necromancy shall pass thee; and moreover I shall shew and inform you so that thou shalt have all thy desire, whereby methinks it is a great gift for so little a doing, for ye may also thus all your friends helpen, and make your enemies unmighty." Through that great promise was Virgil tempted; he had the fiend shew the books to him that he might have and occupy them at his will. And so the fiend shewed him, and then Virgilius pulled open a board, and there was a little hole, and thereat crawled the devil out like an eel, and came and stood before Virgilius like a big man; thereat Virgilius was astonished and marvelled greatly thereof that so great a man might come out at so little a hole; then said Virgilius, "should ye well pass into the hole that ye came out of?" "Yea, I shall well," said the devil.--"I hold the best pledge that I have, ye shall not do it." "Well," said the devil, "thereto I consent." And then the devil crawled into the little hole again, and as he was therein, Virgilius covered the hole again, and so was the devil beguiled, and might not there come out again, but there abideth still therein. Then called the devil dreadfully to Virgilius and said, "What have ye done?" Virgilius answered, "Abide there still to your day appointed." And from thenceforth abideth he there. And so Virgilius became very cunning in the practise of the black science.

HOWE THE EMPEROR ASKED COUNSEL OF VIRGILIUS, HOW THE NIGHT RUNNERS AND ILL DOERS MIGHT BE RID-OUT OF THE STREETS.

The emperor had many complaints of the night runners and thieves, and also of the great murdering of people in the night, in so much that the emperor asked counsel of Virgilius, and said: "That he hath great complaints of the thieves that runneth by night for they kill many men; what counsel, Virgilius, is best to be done?" Then answered Virgilius to the emperor, "Ye shall make a horse of copper and a copper man upon his back, having in his hands a flail of iron, and that horse, ye shall so bring afore the towne house, and ye shall let cry that a man from henceforth at ten of the clock should ring a bell, and he that after the bell was rung in the streets should be slain, no work thereof should be done." And when this cry was made the ruffians set not a point, but kept the streets as they did afore and would not let therefor; and as soon as the bell was rung at ten of the clock, then leaped the horse of copper with the copper man through the streets of Rome, insomuch that he left not one street in Rome unsought; and as soon as he found any man or woman in the street he slew them stalk dead, insomuch that he slew above two hundred persons or more. And this seeing, the thieves and night-runners how they might find a remedy therefor, thought in their minds to make a drag with a ladder thereon; and as they would go out by night they took their ladders with them, and when they heard the horse come, then cast they the drag upon the houses, and so went up upon their ladders to the top of the houses, so that the copper man might not touch them; and so abide they still in their wicked doing. Then came they again to the emperor and complained, and then the emperor asked counsel of Virgilius; and Virgilius answered and said, "that then he must get two copper hounds and set them of either side of the copper horse, and let cry again that no body after the bell is rung should depart out of their house that would live." But the night walkers cared not a point for that cry; but when they heard the horse coming, with their ladders climbed upon the houses, but the dogs leaped after and tore them all in pieces; and thus the noise went through Rome, in so much that nobody durst in the night go in the street, and thus all the night-walkers were destroyed.

HOW VIRGILIUS MADE A LAMP THAT AT ALL TIMES BURNED.

For profit of the common people, Virgilius on a great mighty marble pillar, did make a bridge that came up to the palace, and so went Virgilius well up the pillar out of the palace; that palace and pillar stood in the midst of Rome; and upon this pillar made he a lamp of glass that always burned without going out, and nobody might put it out; and this lamp lightened over all the city of Rome from the one corner to the other, and there was not so little a street but it gave such light that it seemed two torches there had stand; and upon the walls of the palace made he a metal man that held in his hand a metal bow that pointed ever upon the lamp for to shoot it out; but always burned the lamp and gave light over all Rome. And upon a time went the burgesses' daughters to play in the palace and beheld the metal man; and one of them asked in sport, why he shot not? And then she came to the man and with her hand touched the bow, and then the bolt flew out, and brake the lamp that Virgilius made; and it was wonder that the maiden went not out of her mind for the great fear she had, and also the other burgesses' daughters that were in her company, of the great stroke that it gave when it hit the lamp, and when they saw the metal man so swiftly run his way; and never after was he no more seen; and this foresaid lamp was abiding burning after the death of Virgilius by the space of three hundred years or more.

It is on the wrecks and ruins recorded in such fables as these that modern science is builded.

IV.

BENVENUTO CELLINI.

"Now we will leave the fairy tales," said Uncle Fritz, "and begin on modern times."

"Modern times means since 1492," said Alice,--"the only date in history I am quite sure of, excepting 1866."

"Eighteen-hundred and sixty-six," said John Goodrich,--"the _Annus Mirabilis_, celebrated for the birth of Miss Alice Francis and Mr. J. G."

"Hush, hush! Uncle Fritz wants to say something."

"We will leave the fairy tales," said poor chicken-pecked Uncle Fritz, "and begin with Benvenuto Cellini. Who has seen any of his work?"

Several of the girls who had been in Europe remembered seeing gold and silver work of Benvenuto Cellini's in the museums. Uncle Fritz told them that the little hand-bell used on his own tea-table was modelled at Chicopee, in Massachusetts, from a bell which was the design of Benvenuto Cellini; and he sent for the bell that the children might see how ingenious was the ornamentation, and how simply the different designs were connected together.

He told Alice she might read first from Vasari's account of him. Vasari's book, which the children now saw for the first time, is a very entertaining one. Vasari was himself an artist, of the generation just following Michael Angelo. He was, indeed, the contemporary of Raphael. But he is remembered now, not for his pictures, nor for his work in architecture, both of which were noted in his time, but for his lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects, which was first published in 1550. Benvenuto Cellini was born ten years before Vasari, and here is a part of Vasari's life of him.

LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI.

Benvenuto Cellini, citizen of Florence, born in 1500, at present a sculptor, in his youth cultivated the goldsmith's business, and had no equal in that branch. He set jewels, and adorned them with diminutive figures, exquisitely formed, and some of them so curious and fanciful that nothing finer or more beautiful can be conceived. At Rome he made for Pope Clement VII. a button to be worn upon his pontifical habit, fixing a diamond to it with the most exquisite art. He was employed to make the stamps for the Roman mint, and there never have been seen finer coins than those that were struck in Rome at that period.