Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 15

"He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell, A child's arm in his pocket."

[88] Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam.

EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION.

A people denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give vent to their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which they could not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood, or sculptured on stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed their satire among the playful ornaments designed to amuse those of whom they so fruitlessly complained! Such monuments of the suppressed feelings of the mult.i.tude are not often inspected by the historian--their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances always considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such dispersed efforts in every aera, would cast a new light of secret history over many dark intervals.

Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the _Pileus_, or cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things a.s.sumed an appearance contrary to what they were; and human nature, as well as human laws, might be said to have been _parodied_. Among so many whimsical regulations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which forbad the circulation of money; if any one offered the coin of the state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious French antiquary seems to have discovered a cla.s.s of wretched medals, cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob lords, who, to ridicule the idea of _money_, used the basest metals, stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices--such as a sow; a chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind him; or an old woman's head, _Acca Laurentia_, either the traditional old nurse of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in mockery, this base metal is stamped with S. C., to ridicule the _Senatus consulto_, which our antiquary happily explains,[89] in the true spirit of this government of mockery, _Saturnalium consulto_, agreeing with the legend of the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four _tali_, or bones, which they used as dice, _Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit_--"Let them who play give a pledge, which will be sufficient." This mock-money served not only as an expression of the native irony of the radical gentry of Rome during their festival, but, had they spoken their mind out, meant a ridicule of money itself; for these citizens of equality have always imagined that society might proceed without this contrivance of a medium which served to represent property in which they themselves must so little partic.i.p.ate.

A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed sentiments of the populace as were these _Saturnalia_, had been nearly lost for us, had not some notions been preserved by Lucian; for we glean but sparingly from the solemn pages of the historian, except in the remarkable instance which Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the body of the Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a similar one who accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph, and who was allowed the unrestrained licentiousness of his tongue, were both the organs of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble, who were their real masters. On this occasion the arch-mime, representing both the exterior personage and the character of Vespasian, according to custom, inquired the expense of the funeral? He was answered, "ten millions of sesterces!" In allusion to the love of money which characterised the emperor, his mock representative exclaimed, "Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my body into the Tiber!"

All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the art which multiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular indignation was confided not to books (for they could not read), but to pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in Wolfius[90] the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of aesop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life, wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth--"G.o.d is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!" And underneath was inscribed--"This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the Gospel, 'Beware of false prophets!'" Such exhibitions were often introduced into articles of furniture. A cus.h.i.+on was found in an old abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves, bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water, crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant; and were not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even indecent.[91]

At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a curious instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated ma.n.u.scripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several.

A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to bless a c.o.c.k, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a crosier, dropping beads, which a c.o.c.k is picking up; to satirise the blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the c.o.c.k alluded to our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts: the s.e.x marked by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into a cauldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These _ornaments_ must have been generally executed by the monks themselves; but these more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have sympathised with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Churchmen were the usual objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days; but the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the "curses not loud, but deep," of their satirical pencils.

As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom became so general, that in one of the dialogues of Erasmus, where two Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such satirical exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments of inns. The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one which he had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a sick man's bed, dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one hand, while with the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man's pocket. Such are "the straws" by which we may always observe from what corner the wind rises! Mr. Dibdin has recently informed us, that Geyler, whom he calls "the herald of the Reformation," preceding Luther by twelve years, had a stone chair or pulpit in the cathedral at Strasburg, from which he delivered his lectures, or rather rolled the thunders of his anathemas against the monks. This stone pulpit was constructed under his own superintendence, and is covered with very indecent figures of monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to expose their profligate manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries had been done!

In the curious folios of Sauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious chapter, ent.i.tled "_Heretiques, leurs attentats_." In this enumeration of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is very remarkable that, _preceding the time of Luther_, the minds of many were perfectly _Lutheran_ respecting the idolatrous wors.h.i.+p of the Roman Church; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that significant _Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem_, which was formerly projected by continental writers.

Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till 1520--this was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having s.n.a.t.c.hed the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating ma.s.s. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed, trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval, "corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of Virgins and little Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings in the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground!

They entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the _prians_, the _benitoires_, the crucifixes, the colossal _ecce-h.o.m.os_, which they did not always succeed in dislodging for want of time or tools. Amidst these battles with wooden adversaries, we may smile at the frequent solemn processions inst.i.tuted to ward off the vengeance of the parish saint; the wooden was expiated by a silver image, secured by iron bars and attended by the king and the n.o.bility, carrying the new saint, with prayers that he would protect himself from the heretics!

In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted with "The Olivetan Bible;" this was the first translation published by the protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if not the only translator; but at that moment not choosing to become responsible for this new version, he made use of the name of an obscure relative, Robert Pierre Olivetan. Calvin, however, prefixed a Latin preface, remarkable for delivering positions very opposite to those tremendous doctrines of absolute predestination which, in his theological despotism, he afterwards a.s.sumed. De Bure describes this first protestant Bible not only as rare, but, when found, as usually imperfect, much soiled and dog-eared, as the well-read first edition of Shakspeare, by the perpetual use of the mult.i.tude. But a curious fact has escaped the detection both of De Bure and Beloe; at the end of the volume are found _ten verses_, which, in a concealed manner, authenticate the translation; and which no one, unless initiated into the secret, could possibly suspect. The verses are not poetical, but I give the first sentence:--

Lecteur entends, si verite adresse Viens donc ouyr instament sa promesse Et vif parler----&c.

_The first letters of every word_ of these _ten verses_ form a perfect distich, containing information important to those to whom the Olivetan Bible was addressed.

Les Vaudois, peuple evangelique, Ont mis ce thresor en publique.

An anagram would have been too inartificial a contrivance to have answered the purpose of concealing from the world at large this secret.

There is an adroitness in the invention of the initial letters of all the words through these ten verses. They contained a communication necessary to authenticate the version, but which, at the same time, could not be suspected by any person not intrusted with the secret.

When the art of medal-engraving was revived in Europe, the spirit we are now noticing took possession of those less perishable and more circulating vehicles. Satiric medals were almost unknown to the ancient mint, notwithstanding those of the Saturnalia, and a few which bear miserable puns on the unlucky names of some consuls. Medals ill.u.s.trate history, and history reflects light on medals; but we should not place such unreserved confidence on medals as their advocates, who are warm in their favourite study. It has been a.s.serted that medals are more authentic memorials than history itself; but a medal is not less susceptible of the bad pa.s.sions than a pamphlet or an epigram. Ambition has its vanity, and engraves a dubious victory; and Flattery will practise its art, and deceive us in gold! A calumny or a fiction on metal may be more durable than on a fugitive page; and a libel has a better chance of being preserved when the artist is skilful, than simple truths when miserably executed. Medals of this cla.s.s are numerous, and were the precursors of those political satires exhibited in caricature prints.[92] There is a large collection of wooden cuts about the time of Calvin, where the Romish religion is represented by the most grotesque forms which the ridicule of the early Reformers could invent. More than a thousand figures attest the exuberant satire of the designers. This work is equally rare and costly.[93]

Satires of this species commenced in the freedom of the Reformation; for we find a medal of Luther in a monk's habit, satirically bearing for its reverse Catherine de Bora, the nun whom this monk married; the first step of his personal reformation! Nor can we be certain that Catherine was not more concerned in that great revolution than appears in the voluminous Lives we have of the great reformer. However, the reformers were as great sticklers for medals as the "papelins." Of Pope John VIII., an effeminate voluptuary, we have a medal with his portrait, inscribed _Pope Joan!_ and another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman holding a spindle; the reverse, his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, dressed as a Pope, with the tiara on her head, and the keys of St.

Peter in her hands![94]

When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen's person and government were made ridiculous to the people's eyes by prints or pictures "representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, and wrinkled, with every aggravated circ.u.mstance of deformity that could disgrace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, surrounded with M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; _Maria Regina Angliae!_ a number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip."[95] It is said that the queen suspected some of her own council of this invention, who alone were privy to these transactions. It is, however, in this manner that the voice which is suppressed by authority comes at length in another shape to the eye.

The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious invention--a gorgon's head! A church bell forms the helmet; the ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre devouring a lamb, an a.s.s's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding a rosary: the face is made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and water for the eye, and other priestly ornaments for the shoulder and breast, on which rolls of parchment pardons hang.[96]

A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity that he appears to have served as an excellent _sign-post_ to the inns in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuira.s.s: he was made performing ma.s.s as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the _Ite, missa est!_ He was called the _converter!_ and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, though they should even fight against themselves.

It is rather curious to observe of this new species of satire, so easily distributed among the people, and so directly addressed to their understandings, that it was made the vehicle of national feeling.

Ministers of state condescended to invent the devices. Lord Orford says that _caricatures on cards_ were the invention of George Townshend in the affair of Byng, which was soon followed by a pack. I am informed of an ancient pack of cards which has caricatures of all the Parliamentarian Generals, which might be not unusefully shuffled by a writer of secret history.[97] We may be surprised to find the grave Sully practising this artifice on several occasions. In the civil wars of France the Duke of Savoy had taken by surprise Saluces, and struck a medal; on the reverse a centaur appears shooting with a bow and arrow, with the legend _Opportune!_ But when Henry the Fourth had reconquered the town, he published another, on which Hercules appears killing the centaur, with the word _Opportunius_. The great minister was the author of this retort![98] A medal of the Dutch amba.s.sador at the court of France, Van Beuninghen, whom the French represent as a haughty burgomaster, but who had the vivacity of a Frenchman and the haughtiness of a Spaniard, as Voltaire characterises him, is said to have been the occasion of the Dutch war in 1672; but wars will be hardly made for an idle medal. Medals may, however, indicate a preparatory war. Louis the Fourteenth was so often compared to the sun at its meridian, that some of his creatures may have imagined that, like the sun, he could dart into any part of Europe as he willed, and be as cheerfully received.[99]

The Dutch minister, whose Christian name was _Joshua_, however, had a medal struck of Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that this miracle was operated by his little republic. The medal itself is engraven in Van Loon's voluminous _Histoire Medallique du Pays Bas_, and in Marchand's _Dictionnaire Historique_, who labours to prove against twenty authors that the Dutch amba.s.sador was not the inventor; it was not, however, unworthy of him, and it conveyed to the world the high feeling of her power which Holland had then a.s.sumed. Two years after the noise about this medal the republic paid dear for the device; but thirty years afterwards this very burgomaster concluded a glorious peace, and France and Spain were compelled to receive the mediation of the Dutch Joshua with the French Sun.[100] In these vehicles of national satire, it is odd that the phlegmatic Dutch, more than any other nation, and from the earliest period of their republic, should have indulged freely, if not licentiously. It was a republican humour. Their taste was usually gross. We owe to them, even in the reign of Elizabeth, a severe medal on Leicester, who, having retired in disgust from the government of their provinces, struck a medal with his bust, reverse a dog and sheep,

_Non gregem, sed ingratos invitus desero_;

on which the angry juvenile states struck another, representing an ape and young ones; reverse, Leicester near a fire,

_Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem._

Another medal, with an excellent portrait of Cromwell, was struck by the Dutch. The Protector, crowned with laurels, is on his knees, laying his head in the lap of the commonwealth, but loosely exhibiting himself to the French and Spanish amba.s.sadors with gross indecency: the Frenchman, covered with _fleur de lis_, is pus.h.i.+ng aside the grave Don, and disputes with him the precedence--_Retire-toy; l'honneur appartient au roy mon maitre, Louis le Grand_. Van Loon is very right in denouncing this same medal, so grossly flattering to the English, as most detestable and indelicate! But why does Van Loon envy us this lumpish invention? why does the Dutchman quarrel with his own cheese? The honour of the medal we claim, but the invention belongs to his country. The Dutch went on commenting in this manner on English affairs from reign to reign. Charles the Second declared war against them in 1672 for a malicious medal, though the States-General offered to break the die, by purchasing it of the workman for one thousand ducats; but it served for a pretext for a Dutch war, which Charles cared more about than the _mala bestia_ of his exergue. Charles also complained of a scandalous picture which the brothers de Witt had in their house, representing a naval battle with the English. Charles the Second seems to have been more sensible to this sort of national satire than we might have expected in a professed wit; a race, however, who are not the most patient in having their own sauce returned to their lips. The king employed Evelyn to write a history of the Dutch war, and "enjoined him _to make it a little keen_, for the Hollanders had very unhandsomely abused him in their pictures, books, and libels." The Dutch continued their career of conveying their national feeling on English affairs more triumphantly when their Stadtholder ascended an English throne. The birth of the Pretender is represented by the chest which Minerva gave to the daughters of Cecrops to keep, and which, opened, discovered an infant with a serpent's tail: _Infantemque vident apporr.e.c.t.u.mque draconem_; the chest perhaps alluding to the removes of the warming-pan; and, in another, James and a Jesuit flying in terror, the king throwing away a crown and sceptre, and the Jesuit carrying a child; _Ite missa est_, the words applied from the ma.s.s.[101] But in these contests of national feeling, while the grandeur of Louis the Fourteenth did not allow of these ludicrous and satirical exhibitions, and while the political idolatry which his forty Academicians paid to him exhausted itself in the splendid fictions of a series of famous medals, amounting to nearly four hundred, it appears that we were not without our reprisals; for I find Prosper Marchand, who writes as a Hollander, censuring his own country for having at length adulated the grand monarque by a complimentary medal. He says--"The English cannot be reproached with a similar _debonairete_." After the famous victories of Marlborough, they indeed inserted in a medal the head of the French monarch and the English queen, with this inscription, _Ludovicus Magnus, Anna Major_.

Long ere this one of our queens had been exhibited by ourselves with considerable energy. On the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth, Pinkerton tells us, struck a medal representing the English and Spanish fleets, _Hesperidum regem devicit virgo_. Philip had medals dispersed in England of the same impression, with this addition, _Negatur. Est meretrix vulgi._ These the queen suppressed, but published another medal, with this legend:--

Hesperidum regem devicit virgo; negatur, Est meretrix vulgi; res eo deterior.

An age fertile in satirical prints was the eventful aera of Charles the First: they were showered from all parties, and a large collection of them would admit of a critical historical commentary, which might become a vehicle of the most curious secret history. Most of them are in a bad style, for they are allegorical; yet that these satirical exhibitions influenced the eyes and minds of the people is evident from an extraordinary circ.u.mstance. Two grave collections of historical doc.u.ments adopted them. We are surprised to find prefixed to Rushworth's and Nalson's historical collections two such political prints! Nalson's was an act of retributive justice; but he seems to have been aware that satire in the shape of pictures is a language very attractive to the mult.i.tude, for he has introduced a caricature print in the solemn folio of the Trial of Charles the First.[102] Of the happiest of these political prints is one by Taylor the Water-poet, not included in his folio, but prefixed to his "Mad Fas.h.i.+ons, Odd Fas.h.i.+ons, or the Emblems of these Distracted Times." It is the figure of a man whose eyes have left their sockets, and whose legs have usurped the place of his arms; a horse on his hind legs is drawing a cart; a church is inverted; fish fly in the air; a candle burns with the flame downwards; and the mouse and rabbit are pursuing the cat and the fox!

The animosities of national hatred have been a fertile source of these vehicles of popular feeling--which discover themselves in severe or grotesque caricatures. The French and the Spaniards mutually exhibit one another under the most extravagant figures. The political caricatures of the French in the seventeenth century are numerous. The _badauds_ of Paris amused themselves for their losses by giving an emetic to a Spaniard, to make him render up all the towns his victories had obtained: seven or eight Spaniards are seen seated around a large turnip, with their frizzled mustachios, their hats _en pot-a-beurre_; their long rapiers, with their pummels down to their feet, and their points up to their shoulders; their ruffs stiffened by many rows, and pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles. The Dutch were exhibited in as great variety as the uniformity of frogs would allow. We have largely partic.i.p.ated in the vindictive spirit which these grotesque emblems keep up among the people; they mark the secret feelings of national pride.

The Greeks despised foreigners, and considered them only as fit to be slaves;[103] the ancient Jews, inflated with a false idea of their small territory, would be masters of the world: the Italians placed a line of demarcation for genius and taste, and marked it by their mountains. The Spaniards once imagined that the conferences of G.o.d with Moses on Mount Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a j.a.panese become the friend of a foreigner, he is considered as committing treason to his emperor, and rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is figuratively called _Tenka_, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John Bullism is not peculiar to Englishmen; and patriotism is a n.o.ble virtue when it secures our independence without depriving us of our humanity.

The civil wars of the League in France, and those in England under Charles the First, bear the most striking resemblance; and in examining the revolutionary scenes exhibited by the graver in the famous _Satire Menippee_, we discover the foreign artist revelling in the _caricature_ of his ludicrous and severe exhibition; and in that other revolutionary period of _La Fronde_, there was a mania for _political songs_; the curious have formed them into collections; and we not only have "the Rump Songs" of Charles the First's times, but have repeated this kind of evidence of the public feeling at many subsequent periods.[104]

_Caricatures_ and _political songs_ might with us furnish a new sort of history; and perhaps would preserve some truths, and describe some particular events not to be found in more grave authorities.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] Baudelot de Dairval, _de l'Utilite des Voyages_, ii. 645. There is a work, by Ficoroni, on these lead _coins_ or _tickets_. They are found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Pinkerton, in referring to this entertaining work, regrets that "such curious remains have almost escaped the notice of medallists, and have not yet been arranged in one cla.s.s, or named. A special work on them would be highly acceptable." The time has perhaps arrived when antiquaries may begin to be philosophers, and philosophers antiquaries! The unhappy separation of erudition from philosophy, and of philosophy from erudition, has. .h.i.therto thrown impediments in the progress of the human mind and the history of man.

[90] Lect. Mem. i. ad. an. 1300.

[91] Many specimens may be seen in Carter's curious volumes on "Ancient Architecture and Painting."

[92] The series published during the wars in the Low Countries are the most remarkable, and may be seen in the volumes by Van Loon.

[93] Mr. Douce possessed a portion of this very curious collection: for a complete one De Bure asked about twenty pounds.

[94] The Roman satirists also invented a tale to ridicule what they dared not openly condemn, in which it was a.s.serted that a play called _The Marriage of the Pope_ was enacted before Cromwell, in which the Donna having obtained the key of Paradise from Innocent, insists on that of Purgatory also, that she may not be sent there when he is wearied of her. "The wedding" is then kept by a ball of monks and nuns, delighted to think they may one day marry also. Such was the means the Romans took to notify their sense of the degradation of the pope.

[95] Warton's "Life of Sir Thomas Pope," p. 58.

[96] This ancient caricature, so descriptive of the popular feelings, is tolerably given in Malcolm's history of "Caricaturing," plate ii.

fig. 1.

[97] This pack was probably executed in Holland in the time of Charles the Second. There are other sets of political cards of the same reign, particularly one connected with the so-called "popish plots," and the murder of Sir Edmundbury G.o.dfrey. The South-Sea Bubble was made the subject of a similar pack, after it had exploded.

[98] The royal house of Navarre was fancifully derived by the old heraldic writers from Hispalus, the son of Hercules; and the pageant provided by the citizens of Avignon to greet his entrance there in 1600, was entirely composed in reference thereto, and Henry indicated in its t.i.tle, _L'Hercule Gaulois Triumphant_.

[99] He took for a device and motto on his s.h.i.+eld on the occasion of tilting-matches and court festivities, a representation of the sun in splendour, and the words, _Nec Pluribus Impar_.

[100] The history of this medal is useful in more than one respect; and may be found in Prosper Marchand.