Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

6

to pass from one room to another. Of course, there was no opportunity of viewing the apartments to advantage: however, I saw enough of them to remark that they formed a suite elegantly decorated. Some persons amused themselves with cards, though the great majority neither played nor danced, but were occupied in conversing with their acquaintance. There was no regular supper, but substantial refreshments of every kind were to be procured on paying, and other smaller ones gratis.

From the tickets not being transferable, and the bearer's name being inserted in each of them, the company was far more select than it could have been without such a restriction. Most of the foreign ambassadors, envoys, &c. were present, and many of the most distinguished persons of both sexes in Paris. More regard was paid to the etiquette of dress at this ball than I have ever witnessed here on similar occasions. The ladies were all en grande toilette, and the men with cocked hats, and in shoes and stockings, which is a novelty here, I assure you, as they mostly appear in boots.

A circumstance which occurred there, from the extravagant credulity it exhibits, as to the effects of sympathy, may amuse you.

A widow, about twenty years of age, more to be admired for the symmetry of her person than for the beauty of her features, had, according to the prevailing custom, intrusted her pocket-handkerchief to the care of a male friend, a gentleman-like young Frenchman of my acquaintance. After dancing, the lady, finding herself rather warm, applied for her handkerchief, with which she wiped her forehead, and returned it to the gentleman, who again put it into his pocket. He then danced, but not with her; and, being also heated, he, by mistake, took out the lady's handkerchief, which, when applied to his face, produced, as he fancied, such an effect on him, that, though he had

previously regarded her with a sort of indifference, from that moment she engaged all his attention, and he was unable to direct his eyes, or even his thoughts, to any other object.

Some philosophers, as is well known, have maintained, that from all bodies there is an emanation of corpuscles, which, coming into contact with our organs, make on the brain an impression, either more or less sympathetic, or of a directly opposite nature. They tell you, for instance, that of two women whom you behold for the first time, the one the least handsome will sometimes please you most, because there exists a greater sympathy between you and her than between you and the more beautiful woman. Without attempting to refute this absurd doctrine of corpuscles, I shall only observe, that this young Frenchman is completely smitten, and declares that no woman in the world can be compared to the widow.

This circumstance reminds me of a still more remarkable effect, ascribed to a similar cause, experienced by Henry III of France. The mar riage of the king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV, with Marguerite de Valois, and that of the prince de Conde with Marie de Cleves, was celebrated at the Louvre, on the 10th of August, 1572. Marie de Cleves, then a most lovely creature, only sixteen, after dancing much, finding herself incommoded by the heat of the ball-room, retired to a private apartment, where one of the waiting-women of the queen-dowager, seeing her in a profuse perspiration, persuaded her to make an entire change of dress. She had scarcely left the room, when the duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III, who had also danced a great deal, entered it to adjust his hair, and, being overheated, wiped his face with the first thing that he found, which happened to be the chemise she had just taken off. Returning to the ball, he fixed his eyes on her, and contemplated her with as much surprise as if he had never

before beheld her.

His emotion, conveyed elsewhere for that evening.

his transports, and the attention which he began to pay her, were the more extraordinary, as during the preceding week, which she had passed at court, he appeared indifferent to those very charms, which now made on his heart an impression so warm and so lasting. short, he became insensible to every thing that did not relate to his passion.

In

His election to the crown of Poland, say historians, far from flattering him, appeared to him an exile; and when he was in that kingdom, absence, far from diminishing his love, seemed to increase it. Whenever he addressed the princess, he pricked his finger, and never wrote to her but with his blood. No sooner was he informed of the death of Charles IX, than he dispatched a courier to assure her that she should soon be queen of France; and, on his return, his thoughts were solely bent on dissolving her marriage with the prince de Conde, which, on account of the latter being a protestant, he expected to accomplish. But this determination proved fatal to the princess; for, shortly after, she was at tacked by a violent illness, attributed to poison, which carried her off in the flower of her age.

No words can paint Henry's despair at this event: he passed several days in tears and groans, and when he was at length obliged to show himself in public, he appeared in deep mourning, and entirely covered with emblems of death, even to his very shoe-strings.

The princess de Conde had been dead upwards of four months, and buried in the abbey-church of St. Germain-des-Pres, when Henry, on entering the abbey, whither he was invited to a grand entertainment given there by cardinal de Bourbon, felt such violent tremblings at his heart, that, not being able to endure their continuance, he was going away; but they ceased all at once, on the body of the princess being removed from its tomb, and

A NEW MODE OF SCANDAL.

A BLIND man of Paris, retiring in the dusk to his hovel, after having spent the day in begging, with little success, was accosted by a person, who told him, that if he would go home with him, he should find his account in it. The blind man joyfully consented to be conducted to his new friend's house, and was thus addressed by him: "I am not rich, and yet wish to show charity to the poor, which I have no other possibility of doing, unless by giving them parcels of tales and novels, which I compose, to sell at a very moderate price, for their own benefit. Here, my friend, is a good parcel of them, which you shall dispose of at the rate of two-pence each, although they are intrinsically worth thrice the money." The poor fellow, after loudly expressing his gratitude, groped his way home, exulting, and sallied out the next morn, to enjoy the profits of his benefactor's pro ductions. He cried his pamphlets by the title of a new novel, as he had been directed, and, for some time, had no custom; but one of his books having been purchased and examined, the rest met with a most rapid sale, and the blind man returned homewards with his pockets well loaded. His pleasant ideas were, however, soon checked, by his finding himself in the custody of an officer of the police, who told him that the book which he had sold was a most virulent and impudent satire against a person of rank. The poor blind man protested his innocence, and told his tale, which, luckily for him, was believed; but he could give no information which could lead to the contriver of this very ingenious and new way of spreading abroad scandal with impunity.

The present age, far from encou

raging obsolete defamation, seems rather to indulge in the opposite extreme. Sir John Falstaff has found an ingenious advocate, to affirm that cowardice never formed a part of his character. Richard III, tyrant as he was, has not been with out a friend, who has exhausted the powers of every engine, which wit and reading could supply, to set his character and his back straight: and volumes upon volumes are written, to prove the immaculate purity of Mary, queen of Scots.

JULIA GONZAGA.

THE story of Julia Gonzaga is well known. Her exquisite and farfamed beauty tempted a corsair to fit out a small squadron, and to land near her castle, in order to make himself master of so rich a prize. A domestic burst into her room, while the pirates were actually scaling her walls, and snatching her, naked as she was, from her bed, conveyed her on horse-back out of the reach of the assailants. When they had gained a place of security, the lady's high sense of modesty obliged her to cause her honest, although perhaps indelicate, preserver, to be assassinated. Thus much is always told; but it is very little known, although certainly true, that during their flight from the castle, the fugitives fell in with one of those roving parties of banditti, which Italy, in those days, abounded with. This paragon of beauty was, a full week, detained by the band of outlaws, before she had leave to pursue her journey, and to execute her plan of vengeance on her deliverer. Had she been honoured by a La Fontaine for her historian, her adventures might perhaps have eclipsed those of the princess of Garbes. Possibly she might not be sorry to be rid of one who had been a witness to the hospitality of her late entertainers.

VARIETIES OF SUPERSTITION.

IT is amusing to notice the various forms which superstition has assumed among mankind. The ancients adopted a very peculiar method of pacifying the wandering spirits of such as had been slain by treachery. The murderer never thought himself safe from being haunted by the spectre of the person whom he had killed, until he had cut off the feet, the hands, the nose, and the ears from the slaughtered corpse, and hung them to his own neck, or under his arm-pits. This appears from the Greek scholiasts on Sophocles, Eschylus, &c. Deiphobus, the husband of Helena, was probably treated in this way, which accounts for the uncouth appearance which he made before neas, in the shades.

[blocks in formation]

And this naturally introduces the Roman method of getting rid of those troublesome nocturnal visitors, the Lemures, so named from a transversion of the word Remus, who was said to have haunted his brother and murderer, Romulus. On this account the hag-ridden prince instituted a festival, called Lemuria, to appease the unquiet dead. The haunted person was to rise at midnight, and to walk barefooted, silently, only making a small noise with his thumb and finger, to keep the disturbed spirit at some distance. He then must wash his hands three times, in spring water, and fill his mouth with beans, which he was to throw behind him, for the spectre, who watched his motions, to pick up; he was, at the same time, to pronounce, "With these beans I redeem me and mine," without turning back his head...... Then, after one more ablution, after striking a vessel of brass, and

after adjuring the ghost, nine seve ral times, by name, to depart, he might turn his head, and the ceremony was ended.

It should seem that a person who had resolution enough to pass through a form so very alarming, must have too firm a mind to give any credit to such childish, expiatory ceremonies.

In what manner are we to account for the difference between that noble wildness found in the tales of superstition, handed down to us by our Celtic ancestors, and the uninterest ing insipidity of all the ghost and witch stories, which the latter ages have produced? Perhaps the cause may be found in that universal allowance of preternatural visitations, which, in former times, pervaded every rank of society, and, of course, encouraged the greatest and most fanciful wits of the time to busy themselves in inventing and recounting picturesque relations, while, in modern days, since the belief of such events has been confined wholly to the ignorant, the poor, and the superannuated, neither genius norimagination are at hand to raise the tale one degree above a white sheet, or a pair of saucer-eyes, nor to supply the spectre with any language more expressive than that of scratch ing, knocking, or fluttering.

Let us, for example's sake, recount one, out of a hundred stories, told by the ancient northern writers. Asuithus and Asmundus were heroes and companions in arms..... They had fought and conquered together during many years, and their friendship was spoken of as a pattern to the warriors of the north. At length the one, after a desperate conflict, was slain in battle. The survivor, after causing a spacious vault to be constructed for his friend's body, and, after having seen his arms, his horse, and his favourite dog, as was the mode of the times, placed within his reach, besides a large store of provisions, entered the cavern, armed as he was, and, in consequence of a mutual vow which had passed between

VOL. III. NO. XVI.

them, insisted on being closed in with his deceased comrade. The orders of such a man were not to be disputed. The soldiers walled up the opening of the vault, heaped over the whole the usual mound of earth, and departed, lamenting the loss of two such leaders.

It chanced that, a century afterwards, Eric, a Swedish prince, marching with his army near the scene of this awful event, was incited, by the hopes of finding some vast treasure, to violate this asylum of the dead. His pioneers instantly levelled the hillock, and the arch of the vault soon gave way; when, instead of the expected solemn stillness of a tomb, the ghastly figure of the surviving hero rushed forth, all covered with blood, and deprived of half his visage.

The tale he told to the Norwegian was frightful as his own appearance. "As soon," he said, "as the tomb had been closed, a hungry and cruel spirit had taken possession of the body of his slaughtered friend, and had, without ceasing a moment, employed all the force and arms of the deceased, in order to conquer and devour the buried survivor..... He added, that the spectre had so far prevailed, as to have feasted on the horse, the dog, and half the face of the wretched narrator, but that he had, at length, by the exertion of his old prowess, overpowered the spectre, and beheaded and buried the possessed carcase."

Here the story ends, and, perhaps, one of the most singular parts of it is, that it was told to the Norwegian prince in extempore verse. A circumstance which, in the mouth of a man who had been one hundred years fighting with a goblin, and who had but half a face left, seems uncommon. But such effusions of poetry were usual, in former ages, in all remarkable occurrences. The modern vampire has strong traces of descent from the above quoted gothic phantom.

Thus we are told by Matthew Paris, that as Gilbert Folliot, afterwards bishop of London, was, one

8

night, revolving in his head certain points in politics, a science to which he had a stronger turn than to divinity, he was most fearfully interrupted in his meditation by Satan, who, with an unpleasant tone of voice, thus accosted him in rhyme: "O Gilberte Folliot!....Dum revolvis tot & tot....Deus tuus est Astarot." To whom the unterrified priest replied with greater presence of mind than civility, "Mentiris, Dæmon! Qui est Deus.....Sabboath, est ille meus."

Near the abbey of Clairvaux, in Switzerland, there is a tradition, that an evil spirit lies beneath a mountain, enchained by St. Bernard; and the smiths of that neighbourhood, when they go to work in the morning, always think it their duty to strike three strokes on their anvils, to rivet his fetters.

This infernal being deserves much less compassion than those industrious phantoms, who, according to a reputable tradition, are still to be heard near a southern cliff in Wales, constantly employed in hammering on the brazen wall, which Merlin intended for the defence of Britain. But the heedless enchanter having, after he had set them to work, been decoyed by the lady of the lake, into a perpetual confinement, the poor spirits still continued their unavailing labour, and must hammer on till Merlin regains his freedom.

Should a glass-house fire be kept up, without extinction, for a longer term than seven years, there is no doubt but that a salamander would be generated in the cinders. This very rational idea is much more generally credited than wise men would readily believe.

In a folio book, of some price, we meet the following receipt:

How to make a Basiliske. "I deny not," quoth the author, "but a living creature may be generated, that shall poison one by seeing and touching, as if it were a basilick. But take heed, you that try to produce this creature, that

do not endanger yourself, which,

I think, may easily come to pass. Infuse fruitful eggs where you have a liquid moisture of arsenic, or ser pents' poison, and other deadly things, and let the eggs lie therein for some days; set them under hens that do cluck, but shake them not in your hands, lest you destroy the mischief sought for. There is no greater cause to be found to produce divers monsters, than by eggs."

No man ever gave into popular and superstitious prejudices more readily than the otherwise ingenious and entertaining antiquarian, John Aubrey. His method of relation was always quaint, and sometimes too general, as in the following instance:

"Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition. Being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared, with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang."

The annals of France report, that, in 793, there fell out an uncommon scarcity; the ears of corn were all void of substance, and strange preternatural beings were heard in the air, proclaiming themselves to be demons, who had ravaged the harvests, in order to revenge the clergy for the reluctance of the people as to the payment of tythes, which, in consequence of this diabolical interference, were ordered to be regularly discharged.

James I defines a necromancer to be the devil's master, and to command him by art. A witch, his servant, for whom he works by compact.

St. Augustine, treating of the resurrection, introduces, as an instance of the unaccountableness of some among the works of nature, a peculiar property belonging to the flesh of the peacock. This, he affirms, will never corrupt, although, from its colour and consistence, and from the species of food by which it is generated, one would suppose it at least as liable to putrefaction as any other kind of animal substance.

The learned Godwin, in his antiquities of the Jewish nation, fa

« ПредишнаНапред »