Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 27

There was an arbour in the garden, by the side of a ca.n.a.l; you had scarcely seated yourself when you were sent out afloat to the middle of the ca.n.a.l--from whence you could not escape till this man of art and science wound you up to the arbour. What was pa.s.sing at the "Royal Society" was also occurring at the "Academie des Sciences" at Paris. A great and gouty member of that philosophical body, on the departure of a stranger, would point to his legs, to show the impossibility of conducting him to the door; yet the astonished visitor never failed finding the virtuoso waiting for him on the outside, to make his final bow! While the visitor was going down stairs, this inventive genius was descending with great velocity in a machine from the window: so that he proved, that if a man of science cannot force nature to walk down stairs, he may drive her out at the window!

If they travelled at home, they set off to note down prodigies. Dr.

Plott, in a magnificent project of journeying through England, for the advantage of "Learning and Trade," and the discovery of "Antiquities and other Curiosities," for which he solicited the royal aid which Leland enjoyed, among other notable designs, discriminates a cla.s.s thus: "Next I shall inquire of animals; and first of strange people."--"Strange accidents that attend corporations or families, as that the deans of Rochester ever since the foundation by turns have died deans and bishops; the bird with a white breast that haunts the family of Oxenham near Exeter just before the death of any of that family; the bodies of trees that are seen to swim in a pool near Brereton in Ches.h.i.+re, a certain warning to the heir of that honourable family to prepare for the next world." And such remarkables as "Number of children, such as the Lady Temple, who before she died saw seven hundred descended from her."[203] This fellow of the Royal Society, who lived nearly to 1700, was requested to give an edition of Pliny: we have lost the benefit of a most copious commentary! Bishop Hall went to "the Spa." The wood about that place was haunted not only by "freebooters, but by wolves and witches; although these last are ofttimes but one." They were called _loups-garoux_; and the Greeks, it seems, knew them by the name of [Greek: lukanthropoi], men-wolves: witches that have put on the shapes of those cruel beasts. "We sawe a boy there, whose half-face was devoured by one of them near the village; yet so, as that the eare was rather cut than bitten off." Rumour had spread that the boy had had half his face devoured; when it was examined, it turned out that his ear had only been scratched! However, there can be no doubt of the existence of "witch-wolves;" for Hall saw at Limburgh "one of those miscreants executed, who confessed on the wheel to have devoured two-and-forty children in that form." They would probably have found it difficult to have summoned the mothers who had lost the children. But observe our philosopher's reasoning: "It would aske a large volume to scan this problem of _lycanthropy_." He had laboriously collected all the evidence, and had added his arguments: the result offers a curious instance of acute reasoning on a wrong principle.[204]

Men of science and art then pa.s.sed their days in a bustle of the marvellous. I will furnish a specimen of philosophical correspondence in a letter to old John Aubrey. The writer betrays the versatility of his curiosity by very opposite discoveries. "My hands are so full of work that I have no time to transcribe for Dr. Henry More an account of the Barnstable apparition--Lord Keeper North would take it kindly from you--give a sight of this letter from Barnstable to Dr. Whitchcot." He had lately heard of a Scotchman who had been carried by fairies into France; but the purpose of his present letter is to communicate other sort of apparitions than the ghost of Barnstable. He had gone to Glas...o...b..ry, "to pick up a few berries from the holy thorn which flowered every Christmas day."[205] The original thorn had been cut down by a military saint in the civil wars; but the trade of the place was not damaged, for they had contrived not to have a single holy thorn, but several, "by grafting and inoculation."[206] He promises to send these "berries;" but requests Aubrey to inform "that person of quality who had rather have a _bush_, that it was impossible to get one for him. I am told," he adds, "that there is a person about Glas...o...b..ry who hath a nursery of them, which he sells for a crown a piece," but they are supposed not to be "of the right kind."

The main object of this letter is the writer's "suspicion of gold in this country;" for which he offers three reasons. Tacitus says there was gold in England, and that Agrippa came to a spot where he had a prospect of Ireland--from which place he writes; secondly, that "an honest man"

had in this spot found stones from which he had extracted good gold, and that he himself "had seen in the broken stones a clear appearance of gold;" and thirdly, "there is a story which goes by tradition in that part of the country, that in the hill alluded to there was a door into a hole, that when any wanted money they used to go and knock there, that a woman used to appear, and give to such as came.[207] At a time one by greediness or otherwise gave her offence, she flung to the door, and delivered this old saying, still remembered in the country:

'When all _the Daws_ be gone and dead, Then.... Hill shall s.h.i.+ne gold red.'

My fancy is, that this relates to an ancient family of this name, of which there is now but one man left, and he not likely to have any issue." These are his three reasons; and some mines have perhaps been opened with no better ones! But let us not imagine that this great naturalist was credulous; for he tells Aubrey that "he thought it was but a monkish tale forged in the abbey so famous in former time; but as I have learned not to despise our forefathers, I question whether this may not refer to some rich mine in the hill, formerly in use, but now lost. I shall shortly request you to discourse with my lord about it, to have advice, &c. In the mean time it will be best to _keep all private_ for his majesty's service, his lords.h.i.+p's, and perhaps some private person's benefit." But he has also positive evidence: "A mason not long ago coming to the renter of the abbey for a freestone, and sawing it, out came divers pieces of gold of 3 10_s._ value apiece, of ancient _coins_. The stone belonged to some chimney-work; the gold was hidden in it, perhaps, when the Dissolution was near." This last incident of finding coins in a chimney-piece, which he had accounted for very rationally, serves only to confirm his dream, that they were coined out of the gold of the mine in the hill; and he becomes more urgent for "a private search into these mines, which I have, I think, a way to." In the postscript he adds an account of a well, which by was.h.i.+ng, wrought a cure on a person deep in the king's evil. "I hope you don't forget your promise to communicate whatever thing you have relating to your IDEA."

This promised _Idea_ of Aubrey may be found in his MSS., under the t.i.tle of "The Idea of Universal Education." However whimsical, one would like to see it. Aubrey's life might furnish a volume of these philosophical dreams: he was a person who from his incessant bustle and insatiable curiosity was called "The Carrier of Conceptions of the Royal Society."

Many pleasant nights were "privately" enjoyed by Aubrey and his correspondent about the "Mine in the Hill;" Ashmole's ma.n.u.scripts at Oxford contain a collection of many secrets of the Rosicrucians; one of the completest inventions is "a Recipe how to walk invisible." Such were the fancies which rocked the children of science in their cradles! and so feeble were the steps of our curious infancy!--But I start in my dreams! dreading the reader may also have fallen asleep!

"Measure is most excellent," says one of the oracles; "to which also we being in like manner persuaded, O most friendly and pious Asclepiades, here finish"--the dreams at the dawn of philosophy!

FOOTNOTES:

[197] G.o.dwin's amusing _Lives of the Necromancers_ abound in marvellous stories of the supernatural feats of these old students.

[198] Agrippa was the most fortunate and honoured of occult philosophers. He was lodged at courts, and favoured by all his contemporaries. Scholars like Erasmus spoke of him with admiration; and royalty constantly sought his powers of divination. But in advanced life he was accused of sorcery, and died poor in 1534.

[199] One of the most popular of our old English prose romances, "The Historie of Fryer Bacon," narrates how he had intended to "wall England about with bra.s.s," by means of such a brazen head, had not the stupidity of a servant prevented him. The tale may be read in Thoms' "Collection of Early English Prose Romances."

[200] The allusion here is to the automaton chess-player, first exhibited by Kempelen (its inventor) in England about 1785. The figure was habited as a Turk, and placed behind a chest, this was opened by the exhibitor to display the machinery, which seemed to give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess with any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game; the machinery being really constructed to hide him, and disarm suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the marvellous nature of the machinery is exploded.

[201] This bra.s.s duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M.

Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes.

[202] This great charlatan, after many successful impositions, ended his life in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541.

[203] Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R.

Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England, Scotland, and Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of "folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Crouch the bookseller, under a fict.i.tious name.

[204] Hall's postulate is, that G.o.d's work could not admit of any substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers; but "Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conceit and the beholder's eyes." In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of "the Virgin of Louvain," though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate "the G.o.ddess," as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down, vociferating "d.a.m.nation to him that made it, and to him that believes it!"

[205] Thousands flocked to see this "miracle" in the middle ages, and their presence brought great wealth to the abbey. It was believed to have grown miraculously from the staff used by St.

Joseph. It appears to have been brought from Palestine, and merely to have flowered in accordance with its natural season, though differing with ours.

[206] Taylor, the water poet, in his "Wonders of the West," 1649, says that a slip was preserved by a vintner dwelling at Glas...o...b..ry, when the soldiers cut down the tree; that he set it in his garden, "and he with others did tell me that the same doth likewise bloom on the 25th day of December, yearly."

[207] Many of these tales of treasures in hills, are now reduced to the simple facts of discoveries being made of coins and personal ornaments, in tumuli of Roman and Saxon settlers in England. In the British Museum is a gold breastplate found in a grave at Mold, in Flints.h.i.+re. The grave-hills of Bohemia have furnished the museum at Vienna with a large number of gold objects of great size and value.

In Russia the dead have been found placed between large plates of pure gold in the centre of such tumuli; and in Ireland very large and valuable gold personal ornaments have been frequently found in grave-hills.

ON PUCK THE COMMENTATOR.

Literary forgeries recently have been frequently indulged in, and it is urged that they are of an innocent nature; but impostures more easily practised than detected leave their mischief behind, to take effect at a distant period; and as I shall show, may entrap even the judicious! It may require no high exertion of genius to draw up a grave account of an ancient play-wright whose name has never reached us, or to give an extract from a volume inaccessible to our inquiries and, as dulness is no proof of spuriousness, forgeries, in time, mix with authentic doc.u.ments.[208]

We have ourselves witnessed versions of Spanish and Portuguese poets, which are pa.s.sed on their unsuspicious readers without difficulty, but in which no parts of the pretended originals can be traced; and to the present hour, whatever antiquaries may affirm, the poems of Chatterton[209] and Ossian[210] are veiled in mystery!

If we possessed the secret history of the literary life of George Steevens, it would display an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious ingenuity. He has been happily characterised by Gifford as "the Puck of Commentators!" Steevens is a creature so spotted over with literary forgeries and adulterations, that any remarkable one about the time he flourished may be attributed to him. They were the habits of a depraved mind, and there was a darkness in his character many shades deeper than belonged to Puck; even in the playfulness of his invention there was usually a turn of personal malignity, and the real object was not so much to raise a laugh, as to "grin horribly a ghastly smile," on the individual. It is more than rumoured that he carried his ingenious malignity into the privacies of domestic life; and it is to be regretted that Mr. Nichols, who might have furnished much secret history of this extraordinary literary forger, has, from delicacy, mutilated his collective vigour.

George Steevens usually commenced his operations by opening some pretended discovery in the evening papers, which were then of a more literary cast than they are at present; the _St. James's Chronicle_, the _General Evening Post_, or the _Whitehall_, were they not dead in body and in spirit, would now bear witness to his successful efforts. The late Mr. Boswell told me, that Steevens frequently wrote notes on Shakspeare, purposely to mislead or entrap Malone, and obtain for himself an easy triumph in the next edition! Steevens loved to a.s.sist the credulous in getting up for them some strange new thing, dancing them about with a Will-o'-the-wisp--now alarming them by a shriek of laughter! and now like a grinning Pigwigging sinking them chin-deep into a quagmire! Once he presented them with a fict.i.tious portrait of Shakspeare, and when the brotherhood were sufficiently divided in their opinions, he pounced upon them with a demonstration, that every portrait of Shakspeare partook of the same doubtful authority! Steevens usually a.s.sumed a _nom de guerre_ of Collins, a pseudo-commentator, and sometimes of Amner, who was discovered to be an obscure puritanic minister who never read text or notes of a play-wright, whenever he explored into a "thousand notable secrets" with which he has polluted the pages of Shakspeare! The marvellous narrative of the upas-tree of Java, which Darwin adopted in his plan of "enlisting imagination under the banner of science," appears to have been another forgery which amused our "Puck." It was first given in the _London Magazine_, as an extract from a Dutch traveller, but the extract was never discovered in the original author, and "the effluvia of this noxious tree, which through a district of twelve or fourteen miles had killed all vegetation, and had spread the skeletons of men and animals, affording a scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described, or painters delineated," is perfectly chimerical. A splendid flim-flam! When Dr.

Berkenhout was busied in writing, without much knowledge or skill, a history of our English authors, Steevens allowed the good man to insert a choice letter by George Peele, giving an account of a "merry meeting at the Globe," wherein Shakspeare said Ben Jonson and Ned Alleyne are admirably made to perform their respective parts. As the nature of the "Biographia Literaria" required authorities, Steevens ingeniously added, "Whence I copied this letter I do not recollect." However, he well knew it came from the "Theatrical Mirror," where he had first deposited the precious original, to which he had unguardedly ventured to affix the date of 1600; unluckily, Peele was discovered to have died two years before he wrote his own letter! The _date_ is adroitly dropped in Berkenhout! Steevens did not wish to refer to his original, which I have often seen quoted as authority. One of these numerous forgeries of our Puck appears in an article in Isaac Reed's catalogue, art. 8708. "The Boke of the Soldan, conteyninge strange matters touchynge his lyfe and deathe, and the ways of his course, in two partes, 12mo," with this marginal note by Reed--"The foregoing was written by George Steevens, Esq., from whom I received it. It was composed merely to impose on 'a literary friend,' and had its effect; for he was so far deceived as to its authenticity, that he gave implicit credit to it, and put down the person's name in whose possession the original books were supposed to be."

One of the sort of inventions which I attribute to Steevens has been got up with a deal of romantic effect, to embellish the poetical life of Milton; and unquestionably must have sadly perplexed his last matter-of-fact editor, who is not a man to comprehend a flim-flam!--for he has sanctioned the whole fiction, by preserving it in his biographical narrative! The first impulse of Milton to travel in Italy is ascribed to the circ.u.mstance of his having been found asleep at the foot of a tree in the vicinity of Cambridge, when two foreign ladies, attracted by the loveliness of the youthful poet, alighted from their carriage, and having admired him for some time as they imagined unperceived, the youngest, who was very beautiful, drew a pencil from her pocket, and having written some lines, put the paper with her trembling hand into his own! But it seems,--for something was to account how the sleeping youth could have been aware of these minute particulars, unless he had been dreaming them,--that the ladies had been observed at a distance by some friends of Milton, and they explained to him the whole silent adventure. Milton on opening the paper read _four verses_ from Guarini, addressed to those "human stars," his own eyes! On this romantic adventure, Milton set off for Italy, to discover the fair "incognita," to which undiscovered lady we are told we stand indebted for the most impa.s.sioned touches in the Paradise Lost! We know how Milton pa.s.sed his time in Italy, with Dati, and Gaddi, and Frescobaldi, and other literary friends, amidst its academies, and often busied in book-collecting. Had Milton's tour in Italy been an adventure of knight-errantry, to discover a lady whom he had never seen, at least he had not the merit of going out of the direct road to Florence and Rome, nor of having once alluded to this _Dame de ses pensees_, in his letters or inquiries among his friends, who would have thought themselves fortunate to have introduced so poetical an adventure in the numerous _canzoni_ they showered on our youthful poet.

This _historiette_, scarcely fitted for a novel, first appeared where generally Steevens's literary amus.e.m.e.nts were carried on, in the _General Evening Post_, or the _St. James's Chronicle_: and Mr. Todd, in the improved edition of Milton's Life, obtained this spurious original, where the reader may find it; but the more curious part of the story remains to be told. Mr. Todd proceeds, "The preceding highly-coloured relation, however, is _not singular_; my friend, Mr. Walker, points out to me a counterpart in the extract from the preface to _Poesies de Marguerite-Eleanore Clotilde, depuis Madame de Surville, Poete Francois du XV. Siecle. Paris, 1803_."

And true enough we find among "the family traditions" of the same Clotilde, that Justine de Levis, great-grandmother of this unknown poetess of the fifteenth century, walking in a forest, witnessed the same beautiful _spectacle_ which the Italian Unknown had at Cambridge; never was such an impression to be effaced, and she could not avoid leaving her tablets by the side of the beautiful sleeper, declaring her pa.s.sion in her tablets by _four Italian verses_! The very number our Milton had meted to him! Oh! these _four_ verses! they are as fatal in their _number_ as the _date_ of Peele's letter proved to George Steevens! Something still escapes in the most ingenious fabrication which serves to decompose the materials. It is well our veracious historian dropped all mention of Guarini--else that would have given that _coup de grace_--a fatal anachronism! However, his invention supplied him with more originality than the adoption of this story and the _four_ verses would lead us to infer. He tells us how Petrarch was jealous of the genius of his Clotilde's grandmother, and has even pointed out a sonnet which, "among the traditions of the family," was addressed to her! He narrates, that the gentleman, when he fairly awoke, and had read the "four verses," set off for Italy, which he run over till he found Justine, and Justine found him, at a tournament at Modena!

This parallel adventure disconcerted our two grave English critics--they find a tale which they wisely judge improbable, and because they discover the tale copied, they conclude that "it is not singular!" This knot of perplexity is, however, easily cut through, if we subst.i.tute, which we are fully justified in, for "Poete du XV. Siecle"--"du XIX.

Siecle." The "Poesies" of Clotilde are as genuine a fabrication as Chatterton's; subject to the same objections, having many ideas and expressions which were unknown in the language at the time they are pretended to have been composed, and exhibiting many imitations of Voltaire and other poets. The present story of the FOUR _Italian verses_, and the beautiful _Sleeper_, would be quite sufficient evidence of the authenticity of "the family traditions" of _Clotilde, depuis Madame de Surville_, and also of Monsieur De Surville himself; a pretended editor, who is said to have found by mere accident the precious ma.n.u.script, and while he was copying from the press, in 1793, these pretty poems, for such they are, of his _grande tante_, was shot in the Reign of Terror, and so completely expired, that no one could ever trace his existence! The real editor, who we must presume to be the poet, published them in 1803.

Such, then, is the history of a literary forgery! A Puck composes a short romantic adventure, which is quietly thrown out to the world in a newspaper or a magazine; some collector, such as the late Mr. Bindley, who procured for Mr. Todd his original, as idle at least as he is curious, houses the forlorn fiction--and it enters into literary history! A French Chatterton picks up the obscure tale, and behold, astonishes the literary inquirers of the very country whence the imposture sprung! But the FOUR _Italian verses_, and the _Sleeping Youth_! Oh! Monsieur Vanderbourg! for that gentleman is the ostensible editor of Clotilde's poesies of the fifteenth century, some ingenious persons are unlucky in this world! Perhaps one day we may yet discover that this "romantic adventure" of _Milton_ and _Justine de Levis_ is not so original as it seems--it may lie hid in the _Astree_ of D'Urfe, or some of the long romances of the Scuderies, whence the English and the French Chattertons may have drawn it. To such literary inventors we say with Swift:--

----Such are your tricks; But since you hatch, pray own your chicks!

Will it be credited that for the enjoyment of a temporary piece of malice, Steevens would even risk his own reputation as a poetical critic? Yet this he ventured, by throwing out of his edition the poems of Shakspeare, with a remarkable hyper-criticism, that "the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service." Not only he denounced the sonnets of Shakspeare, but the sonnet itself, with an absurd question, "What has truth or nature to do with sonnets?" The secret history of this unwarrantable mutilation of a great author by his editor was, as I was informed by the late Mr.

Boswell, merely done to spite his rival commentator Malone, who had taken extraordinary pains in their elucidation. Steevens himself had formerly reprinted them, but when Malone from these sonnets claimed for himself one ivy leaf of a commentator's pride, behold, Steevens in a rage would annihilate even Shakspeare himself, that he might gain a triumph over Malone! In the same spirit, but with more caustic pleasantry, he opened a controversy with Malone respecting Shakspeare's wife! It seems that the poet had forgotten to mention his wife in his copious will; and his recollection of Mrs. Shakspeare seems to mark the slightness of his regard, for he only introduced by an interlineation, a legacy to her of his "second best bed with the furniture"--and nothing more! Malone naturally inferred that the poet had forgot her, and so recollected her as more strongly to mark how little he esteemed her. He had already, as it is vulgarly expressed, "cut her off, not indeed with a s.h.i.+lling, but with an old bed!"[211] All this seems judicious, till Steevens a.s.serts the conjugal affection of the bard, tells us, that the poet having, when in health, provided for her by settlement, or knowing that her father had already done so (circ.u.mstances entirely conjectural), he bequeathed to her at his death not _merely an old piece of furniture, but_, PERHAPS, _as a mark of peculiar tenderness_,

The very bed that on his bridal night Received him to the arms of Belvidera!

Steevens' severity of satire marked the deep malevolence of his heart; and Murphy has strongly pourtrayed him in his address to the _Malevoli_.

Such another Puck was Horace Walpole! The King of Prussia's "Letter" to Rousseau, and "The Memorial" pretended to have been signed by n.o.blemen and gentlemen, were fabrications, as he confesses, only to make mischief. It well became him, whose happier invention, the Castle of Otranto, was brought forward in the guise of forgery, so unfeelingly to have reprobated the innocent inventions of a Chatterton.

We have Pucks busied among our contemporaries: whoever shall discover their history will find it copious though intricate; the malignity at least will exceed tenfold the merriment.

FOOTNOTES:

[208] A remarkable instance is afforded in the present work; see the note to the article on _Newspapers_, in Vol. I., detailing one which has spread falsity to an enormous extent throughout our general literature.

[209] The pretended "antique ma.n.u.scripts" preserved among the Chatterton papers in the British Museum, as well as the fac-simile of the "Yellow Roll," published in the Cambridge edition of Chatterton's works, are, however, so totally unlike the writing of the era to which they purport to belong, that no doubt need be entertained as to their falsity.

[210] They are, however, so far determined by the fragments of Gaelic originals, since published by Scottish antiquaries, that the amplifications of Macpherson can be detected.

[211] Mr. Charles Knight, in his edition of Shakspeare, first clearly pointed out the true nature of the bequest. The great poet's estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly mentioned in the will, were freehold. _His wife was ent.i.tled to dower_, or a life interest of one-third of the proceeds arising from lands or tenements the property of Shakspeare, and which were of considerable value, she was thus amply provided for by the clear and undeniable operation of the law of England. Mr. Halliwell has further proved that such bequests were the constant modes of showing regard to such relatives as were well provided for by the usual legal course of events; and he adds, "so far from this bequest being one of slight importance, and exhibiting small esteem, it was the usual mode of expressing a mark of great affection."