Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 2

This use pa.s.sed from Florence to Rome, where, at the creation of the popes, they displayed illuminations of hand-grenadoes, thrown from the height of a castle. _Pyrotechnics_ from that time have become an art, which, in the degree the inventors have displayed ability in combining the powers of architecture, sculpture, and painting, have produced a number of beautiful effects, which even give pleasure to those who read the descriptions without having beheld them.[6]

A pleasing account of decorated fireworks is given in the Secret Memoirs of France. In August, 1764, Torre, an Italian artist, obtained permission to exhibit a pyrotechnic operation.--The Parisians admired the variety of the colours, and the ingenious forms of his fire. But his first exhibition was disturbed by the populace, as well as by the apparent danger of the fire, although it was displayed on the Boulevards. In October it was repeated; and proper precautions having been taken, they admired the beauty of the fire, without fearing it.

These artificial fires are described as having been rapidly and splendidly executed. The exhibition closed with a transparent triumphal arch, and a curtain illuminated by the same fire, admirably exhibiting the palace of Pluto. Around the columns, stanzas were inscribed, supported by Cupids, with other fanciful embellishments. Among these little pieces of poetry appeared the following one, which ingeniously announced a more perfect exhibition:

Les vents, les frimats, les orages, Eteindront ces FEUX, pour un tems; Mais, ainsi que les FLEURS, avec plus d'avautage, Ils renaitront dans le printems.

IMITATED.

The icy gale, the falling snow, Extinction to these FIRES shall bring; But, like the FLOWERS, with brighter glow, They shall renew their charms in spring.

The exhibition was greatly improved, according to this promise of the artist. His subject was chosen with much felicity; it was a representation of the forges of Vulcan under Mount aetna. The interior of the mount discovered Vulcan and his Cyclops. Venus was seen to descend, and demand of her consort armour for aeneas. Opposite to this was seen the palace of Vulcan, which presented a deep and brilliant perspective.

The labours of the Cyclops produced numberless very happy combinations of artificial fires. The public with pleasing astonishment beheld the effects of the volcano, so admirably adapted to the nature of these fires. At another entertainment he gratified the public with a representation of Orpheus and Eurydice in h.e.l.l; many striking circ.u.mstances occasioned a marvellous illusion. What subjects indeed could be more a.n.a.logous to this kind of fire? Such scenical fireworks display more brilliant effects than our stars, wheels, and rockets.

THE BIBLE PROHIBITED AND IMPROVED.

The following are the _express words_ contained in the regulation of the popes to prohibit the use of the _Bible_.

"As it is manifest, by _experience_, that if the use of the holy writers is permitted in the vulgar tongue more evil than profit will arise, _because_ of the temerity of man; it is for this reason all Bibles are prohibited (_prohibentur Biblia_) with all their _parts_, whether they be printed or written, in whatever vulgar language soever; as also are prohibited all summaries or abridgments of Bibles, or any books of the holy writings, although they should only be historical, and that in whatever Vulgar tongue they may be written."

It is there also said, "That the reading the Bibles of _catholic editors_ may be permitted to those by whose perusal or power the _faith_ may be spread, and who will not _criticise_ it. But this _permission_ is not to be granted without an express _order_ of the _bishop_, or the _inquisitor_, with the _advice_ of the _curate_ and _confessor_; and their permission must first be had in _writing_. And he who, without permission, presumes to _read_ the holy writings, or to have them in his _possession_, shall not be _absolved_ of his sins before he first shall have returned the Bible to his bishop."

A Spanish author says, that if a person should come to his bishop to ask for leave to _read_ the _Bible_, with the best intention, the bishop should answer him from Matthew, ch. xx. ver. 20, "_You know not what you ask_." And indeed, he observes, the nature of this demand indicates an _heretical disposition_.

The reading of the Bible was prohibited by Henry VIII., except by those who occupied high offices in the state; a n.o.ble lady or gentlewoman might read it in "their garden or orchard," or other retired places; but men and women in the lower ranks were positively forbidden to read it, or to have it read to them, under the penalty of a month's imprisonment.

Dr. Franklin has preserved an anecdote of the prohibited Bible in the time of our Catholic Mary. His family had an English Bible; and to conceal it the more securely, they conceived the project of fastening it open with packthreads across the leaves, on the inside of the lid of a close-stool! "When my great-grandfather wished to read to his family, he reversed the lid of the close-stool upon his knees, and pa.s.sed the leaves from one side to the other, which were held down on each by the packthread. One of the children was stationed at the door to give notice if he saw an officer of the Spiritual Court make his appearance; in that case the lid was restored to its place, with the Bible concealed under it as before."

The reader may meditate on what the _popes did_, and what they probably would _have done_, had not Luther happily been in a humour to abuse the pope, and begin a REFORMATION. It would be curious to sketch an account of the _probable_ situation of _Europe_ at the present moment, had the pontiffs preserved the omnipotent power of which they had gradually possessed themselves.

It appears, by an act dated in 1516, that the Bible was called _Bibliotheca_, that is _per emphasim, the Library_. The word library was limited in its signification then to the biblical writings; no other books, compared with the holy writings, appear to have been worthy to rank with them, or const.i.tute what we call a library.

We have had several remarkable attempts to recompose the Bible; Dr.

Geddes's version is aridly literal, and often ludicrous by its vulgarity; as when he translates the _Pa.s.sover_ as the _Skipover_, and introduces _Constables_ among the ancient Israelites; but the following attempts are of a very different kind. Sebastian _Castillon_--who afterwards changed his name to _Castalion_, with his accustomed affectation referring to _Castalia_, the fountain of the Muses--took a very extraordinary liberty with the sacred writings. He fancied he could give the world a more cla.s.sical version of the Bible, and for this purpose introduces phrases and entire sentences from profane writers into the text of holy writ. His whole style is finically quaint, overloaded with prettinesses, and all the ornaments of false taste. Of the n.o.ble simplicity of the Scripture he seems not to have had the remotest conception.

But an attempt by Pere Berruyer is more extraordinary; in his _Histoire du Peuple de Dieu_, he has recomposed the Bible as he would have written a fas.h.i.+onable novel. He conceives that the great legislator of the Hebrews is too barren in his descriptions, too concise in the events he records, nor is he careful to enrich his history by pleasing reflections and interesting conversation pieces, and hurries on the catastrophes, by which means he omits much entertaining matter: as for instance, in the loves of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, Moses is very dry and concise, which, however, our Pere Berruyer is not. His histories of Joseph, and of King David, are relis.h.i.+ng morsels, and were devoured eagerly in all the boudoirs of Paris. Take a specimen of the style. "Joseph combined, with a regularity of features and a brilliant complexion, an air of the n.o.blest dignity; all which contributed to render him one of the most amiable men in Egypt." At length "she declares her pa.s.sion, and pressed him to answer her. It never entered her mind that the advances of a woman of her rank could ever be rejected. Joseph at first only replied to all her wishes by his cold embarra.s.sments. She would not yet give him up. In vain he flies from her; she was too pa.s.sionate to waste even the moments of his astonishment." This good father, however, does ample justice to the gallantry of the Patriarch Jacob. He offers to serve Laban, seven years for Rachel. "Nothing is too much," cries the venerable novelist, "when one really loves;" and this admirable observation he confirms by the facility with which the obliging Rachel allows Leah for one night to her husband! In this manner the patriarchs are made to speak in the tone of the tenderest lovers; Judith is a Parisian coquette, Holofernes is rude as a German baron; and their dialogues are tedious with all the reciprocal politesse of metaphysical French lovers! Moses in the desert, it was observed, is precisely as pedantic as Pere Berruyer addressing his cla.s.s at the university. One cannot but smile at the following expressions:--"By the easy manner in which G.o.d performed miracles, one might easily perceive they cost no effort." When he has narrated an "Adventure of the Patriarchs," he proceeds, "After such an extraordinary, or curious, or interesting adventure," &c. This good father had caught the language of the beau monde, but with such perfect simplicity that, in employing it on sacred history, he was not aware of the ludicrous style in which he was writing.

A Gothic bishop translated the Scriptures into the Goth language, but omitted the _Books of Kings_! lest the _wars_, of which so much is there recorded, should increase their inclination to fighting, already too prevalent. Jortin notices this castrated copy of the Bible in his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History.

As the Bible, in many parts, consists merely of historical transactions, and as too many exhibit a detail of offensive ones, it has often occurred to the fathers of families, as well as to the popes, to prohibit its general reading. Archbishop Tillotson formed a design of purifying the historical parts. Those who have given us a _Family Shakspeare_, in the same spirit may present us with a _Family Bible_.

In these attempts to recompose the Bible, the broad vulgar colloquial diction, which has been used by our theological writers, is less tolerable than the quaintness of Castalion and the floridity of Pere Berruyer.

The style now noticed long disgraced the writings of our divines; and we see it sometimes still employed by some of a certain stamp. Matthew Henry, whose commentaries are well known, writes in this manner on Judges ix.:--"We are here told by what acts Abimelech _got into the saddle_.--None would have _dreamed_ of making such a _fellow_ as he king.--See how he has _wheedled_ them into the choice. He hired into his service the _sc.u.m_ and _scoundrels_ of the country. Jotham was really a _fine gentleman_.--The Sechemites that set Abimelech up, were the first to _kick him off_. The Sechemites said all the ill they could of him in their _table-talk_; they _drank healths_ to his _confusion_.--Well, Gaal's interest in Sechem is soon at an end. _Exit Gaal_!"

Lancelot Addison, by the vulgar coa.r.s.eness of his style, forms an admirable contrast with the amenity and grace of his son's Spectators.

He tells us, in his voyage to Barbary, that "A rabbin once told him, among other _heinous stuff_, that he did not expect the felicity of the next world on the account of any merits but his own; whoever kept the law would arrive at the bliss, by _coming upon his own legs_."

It must be confessed that the rabbin, considering he could not conscientiously have the same creed as Addison, did not deliver any very "heinous stuff," in believing that other people's merits have nothing to do with our own; and that "we should stand on our own legs!" But this was not "proper words in proper places."

ORIGIN OF THE MATERIALS OF WRITING.

It is curious to observe the various subst.i.tutes for paper before its discovery.

Ere the invention of recording events by writing, trees were planted, rude altars were erected, or heaps of stone, to serve as memorials of past events. Hercules probably could not write when he fixed his famous pillars.

The most ancient mode of writing was on _bricks_, _tiles_, and _oyster-sh.e.l.ls_, and on _tables of stone_; afterwards on _plates_ of various materials, on _ivory_, on _barks_ of trees, on _leaves_ of trees.[7]

Engraving memorable events on hard substances was giving, as it were, speech to rocks and metals. In the book of Job mention is made of writing on _stone_, on _rocks_, and on sheets of _lead_. On tables of _stone_ Moses received the law written by the finger of G.o.d. Hesiod's works were written on _leaden_ tables: lead was used for writing, and rolled up like a cylinder, as Pliny states. Montfaucon notices a very ancient book of eight leaden leaves, which on the back had rings fastened by a small leaden rod to keep them together. They afterwards engraved on bronze: the laws of the Cretans were on bronze tables; the Romans etched their public records on bra.s.s. The speech of Claudius, engraved on plates of bronze, is yet preserved in the town-hall of Lyons, in France.[8] Several bronze tables, with Etruscan characters, have been dug up in Tuscany. The treaties among the Romans, Spartans, and the Jews, were written on bra.s.s; and estates, for better security, were made over on this enduring metal. In many cabinets may be found the discharge of soldiers, written on copper-plates. This custom has been discovered in India: a bill of feoffment on copper, has been dug up near Bengal, dated a century before the birth of Christ.

Among these early inventions many were singularly rude, and miserable subst.i.tutes for a better material. In the shepherd state they wrote their songs with thorns and awls on straps of leather, which they wound round their crooks. The Icelanders appear to have scratched their _runes_, a kind of hieroglyphics, on walls; and Olaf, according to one of the Sagas, built a large house, on the bulks and spars of which he had engraved the history of his own and more ancient times; while another northern hero appears to have had nothing better than his own chair and bed to perpetuate his own heroic acts on. At the town-hall, in Hanover, are kept twelve wooden boards, overlaid with bees'-wax, on which are written the names of owners of houses, but not the names of streets. These _wooden ma.n.u.scripts_ must have existed before 1423, when Hanover was first divided into streets. Such ma.n.u.scripts may be found in public collections. These are an evidence of a rude state of _society_.

The same event occurred among the ancient Arabs, who, according to the history of Mahomet, seemed to have carved on the shoulder-bones of sheep remarkable events with a knife, and tying them with a string, hung up these sheep-bone chronicles.

The laws of the twelve tables, which the Romans chiefly copied from the Grecian code, were, after they had been approved by the people, engraven on bra.s.s: they were melted by lightning, which struck the Capitol; a loss highly regretted by Augustus. This manner of writing we still retain, for inscriptions, epitaphs, and other memorials designed to reach posterity.

These early inventions led to the discovery of tables of _wood_; and as _cedar_ has an antiseptic quality from its bitterness, they chose this wood for cases or chests to preserve their most important writings. This well-known expression of the ancients, when they meant to give the highest eulogium of an excellent work, _et cedro digna locuti_, that it was worthy to be written on _cedar_, alludes to the _oil of cedar_, with which valuable MSS. of parchment were anointed, to preserve them from corruption and moths. Persius ill.u.s.trates this:--

Who would not leave posterity such rhymes As _cedar oil_ might keep to latest times!

They stained materials for writing upon, with purple, and rubbed them with exudations from the cedar. The laws of the emperors were published on _wooden tables_, painted with ceruse; to which custom Horace alludes: _Leges incidere ligno_. Such _tables_, the term now softened into _tablets_, are still used, but in general are made of other materials than wood. The same reason for which they preferred the _cedar_ to other wood induced to write on _wax_, as being incorruptible. Men generally used it to write their testaments on, the better to preserve them; thus Juvenal says, _Ceras implere capaces_. This thin paste of wax was also used on tablets of wood, that it might more easily admit of erasure, for daily use.

They wrote with an iron bodkin, as they did on the other substances we have noticed. The _stylus_ was made sharp at one end to write with, and blunt and broad at the other, to efface and correct easily: hence the phrase _vertere stylum_, to turn the stylus, was used to express blotting out. But the Romans forbad the use of this sharp instrument, from the circ.u.mstance of many persons having used them as daggers. A schoolmaster was killed by the Pugillares or table-books, and the styles of his own scholars.[9] They subst.i.tuted a _stylus_ made of the bone of a bird, or other animal; so that their writings resembled engravings.

When they wrote on softer materials, they employed _reeds_ and _canes_ split like our _pens_ at the points, which the orientalists still use to lay their colour or ink neater on the paper.

Naude observes, that when he was in Italy, about 1642, he saw some of those waxen tablets, called Pugillares, so called because they were held in one hand; and others composed of the barks of trees, which the ancients employed in lieu of paper.

On these tablets, or table-books Mr. Astle observes, that the Greeks and Romans continued the use of waxed table-books long after the use of the papyrus, leaves and skins became common; because they were convenient for correcting extemporaneous compositions: from these table-books they transcribed their performances correctly into parchment books, if for their own private use; but if for sale, or for the library, the _Librarii_, or Scribes, performed the office. The writing on table-books is particularly recommended by Quintilian in the third chapter of the tenth book of his Inst.i.tutions; because the wax is readily effaced for any corrections: he confesses weak eyes do not see so well on paper, and observes that the frequent necessity of dipping the pen in the inkstand r.e.t.a.r.ds the hand, and is but ill-suited to the celerity of the mind.

Some of these table-books are conjectured to have been large, and perhaps heavy, for in Plautus, a school-boy is represented breaking his master's head with his table-book. The critics, according to Cicero, were accustomed in reading their wax ma.n.u.scripts to notice obscure or vicious phrases by joining a piece of red wax, as we should underline such by red ink.

Table-hooks written upon with styles were not entirely laid aside in Chaucer's time, who describes them in his Sompner's tale:--

His fellow had a staffe tipp'd with horne, _A paire of tables all of iverie_; And a _pointell polished_ fetouslie, And wrote alwaies the names, as he stood, Of all folke, that gave hem any good.[10]

By the word _pen_ in the translation of the Bible we must understand an iron _style_. Table-books of ivory are still used for memoranda, written with black-lead pencils. The Romans used ivory to write the edicts of the senate on, with a black colour; and the expression of _libri elephantini_, which some authors imagine alludes to books that for their _size_ were called _elephantine_, were most probably composed of ivory, the tusk of the elephant: among the Romans they were undoubtedly scarce.

The _pumice stone_ was a writing-material of the ancients; they used it to smoothe the roughness of the parchment, or to sharpen their reeds.

In the progress of time the art of writing consisted in _painting_ with different kinds of _ink_. This novel mode of writing occasioned them to invent other materials proper to receive their writing; the thin bark of certain _trees_ and _plants_, or _linen_; and at length, when this was found apt to become mouldy, they prepared the _skins of animals_; on the dried skins of serpents were once written the Iliad and Odyssey. The first place where they began to dress these skins was _Pergamus_, in Asia; whence the Latin name is derived of _Pergamenoe_ or _parchment_.

These skins are, however, better known amongst the authors of the purest Latin under the name of _membrana_; so called from the membranes of various animals of which they were composed. The ancients had _parchments_ of three different colours, white, yellow, and purple. At Rome white parchment was disliked, because it was more subject to be soiled than the others, and dazzled the eye. They generally wrote in letters of gold and silver on purple or violet parchment. This custom continued in the early ages of the church; and copies of the evangelists of this kind are preserved in the British Museum.

When the Egyptians employed for writing the _bark_ of a _plant_ or _reed_, called _papyrus_, or paper-rush, it superseded all former modes, for its convenience. Formerly it grew in great quant.i.ties on the sides of the Nile. This plant has given its name to our _paper_, although the latter is now composed of linen and rags, and formerly had been of cotton-wool, which was but brittle and yellow; and improved by using cotton rags, which they glazed. After the eighth century the papyrus was superseded by parchment. The _Chinese_ make their _paper_ with _silk_.

The use of _paper_ is of great antiquity. It is what the ancient Latinists call _charta_ or _chartae_. Before the use of _parchment_ and _paper_ pa.s.sed to the Romans, they used the thin peel found between the wood and the bark of trees. This skinny substance they called _liber_, from whence the Latin word _liber_, a book, and _library_ and _librarian_ in the European languages, and the French _livre_ for book; but we of northern origin derive our _book_ from the Danish _bog_, the beech-tree, because that being the most plentiful in Denmark was used to engrave on. Anciently, instead of folding this bark, this parchment, or paper, as we fold ours, they rolled it according as they wrote on it; and the Latin name which they gave these rolls has pa.s.sed into our language as well as the others. We say a _volume_, or volumes, although our books are composed of leaves bound together. The books of the ancients on the shelves of their libraries were rolled up on a pin and placed erect, t.i.tled on the outside in red letters, or rubrics, and appeared like a number of small pillars on the shelves.[11]